To Lead , To Follow
by driftwoodq
Summary: After Avatar Aang's death, the new Avatar was born. However, Korra was born only with the ability to command three elements—water, fire, and earth. The other half of her Avatar Spirit went to another Water Tribe child, born at precisely the same moment she was, on the opposite side of the world—a young man named Amon. Rating subject to change.
1. Denial

"We need to change our strategy," Lieu said, turning the map on the table. "We've been going at it all wrong—Tarrlok's got us wedged in, we need something to break the tie." He rubbed his chin.

"We can't combat the task forces, not with the numbers we have right now." Hiroshi folded his hands from where he was sitting on the other side of the table. Lieu sighed and leaned against the edge of the table, arms crossed, looking over toward the older man. "We're tired."

"I'm not exactly charismatic," Lieu replied, eyebrows raised. The other man snorted. He sighed and tossed down his mask on the desk. "I'm going to go for a walk." Running fingers through his hair, he glanced up. "Fresh air will help me think."

"I'll go back to work," Hiroshi stood as well. "If you need me, you know where I am." Sato stepped forward, and Lieu took his hand, they clasped forearms. "We'll get out of this."

"We've been fighting ten years too long to give up now," Lieu smiled. Sato smiled back, and they split and went their separate ways, Hiroshi back to his workroom while Lieu headed for his private quarters in the underground, shedding the rest of his uniform inside, except for his kali sticks and generator, which he switched for the smaller version of them, just one stick and a mini-generator, able to be hidden on his belt, and changed into civilian clothes, pausing at the mirror, glancing toward the side of his face.

There were grey hairs at his temple. He left and climbed back to street level, pushing aside a sewer cover and hopping onto the pavement, kicking the tunnels closed, before he started talking, whistling in the darkness.

Lately, things had been going badly for the Equalists. Their former leader, Lieu's friend, a man by the name of Halora, had recently been killed. Councilman Tarrlok could be blamed for that, and now the Lieutenant was the de-facto leader of the Equalists. And he wasn't exactly the most charismatic person—he could talk, but none of it had any substance. They needed someone to rally behind, they needed a boost to inside morale. They needed a new strategist to bring new ideas, to kick-start their efforts to get their numerous members out of jail. And right now they were just barely scraping by under Tarrlok's nose, trying to start up a new plan.

They needed a breath of fresh air, and Lieu had no idea how literal that thought was going to be in a moment.

"Leave me alone!" Someone shouted from a nearby alleyway, voice a bit shrill, and he stopped dead in his tracks, reaching for the kali stick sheathed along the back of his belt. "I don't want anything to do with you!" The alley it came from was dark, and then a moment later there was a blast of fire and a figure flew out if it, hit the ground hard, screaming, rolling over, hands pressed to its face.

It was a kid. Short, dark brown hair, wearing Watertribe clothes, and Lieu paused. "Hey," he took a step closer, still not drawing his weapon. "Are you—" the kid looked up at him, two blue eyes like the sea in a storm, and now covered in weeping burns, shaking, hands pressed to his skin, bleeding, smoking.

Lieu moved before he even knew what was going on, jumping in front of the kid.

"What the hell would you do that for?" He shouted into the alley, and three men came out, lead by one grinning asshole, snapping his fingers to form little sparks of fire. "He's a kid."

"He fucked with the wrong trio," the man replied. "He'll be able to get some nice chicks with a scar like that." Lieu grit his teeth, didn't move. Clenched his fists.

"You people disgust me," he growled. The man paused. "Attacking helpless children—you just crippled him for life."

"You don't need your face to live." Lieu grit his teeth. He could hear his anger pounding in his blood. "You got a problem with that, asshole?"

"Yeah," he growled. "I do." And they moved at the same time, Lieu rushing forward, jumping as he watched the Earthbender move (Triple Threat, why was it always Triple Threat) and landed behind them, slamming his fingers into the Waterbender's back, the one on the corner of the trio, quickly pressing every Chi point up his spine and then his arm, before he kicked him in the nuts just for good measure and rolled as fire singed over his head, hand snapping around to his back, grabbing the handle of his yantok and drew it, electricity crackling over the shaft before he slammed it into the Firebender's leg and the man shouted in surprise.

A rock hit his free hand hard and Lieu almost swore, just ducking and rolling instead, flipping the stick over, lightning crackling, and dove toward the Earthbender, leaping up and over his head, just as—

A gust of wind hit the Bender hard in the chest and he slammed into the wall before being lifted up and thrown back into the darkness of the alley. There was the distant sound of him hitting trash cans and Lieu glanced toward the kid with his badly-burned face, who had stopped screaming and now just was shooting punches of air.

_An Airbender._ Lieu froze—and then it didn't matter, he might fight for Non-Bender rights but this kid had just gotten his face burned off by a Triad member, he had as much right as any to be protected. Lieu landed just as the Firebender started to shoot fire, kicked him in the back of the knee, hit two pressure points on the back of his spine and then jabbed his kali stick point-first into the nape of the man's neck, held it there until he fell, boneless, to the ground, and then looked up at the kid, and put his weapon away, approaching, hands held out.

"You all right?" Well, he wasn't, and the kid rolled onto his side, face pressed into his hands, sobbing wordlessly in pain. Lieu took a step closer. "Hey—"

"Leave me alone," it was choked, pained.

"We need to get you back to Air Temple Island," Lieu said. He hadn't known there were any Airbenders this age—maybe he had gotten some of Tenzin's kids' ages wrong. "Councilman Tenzin is going to be furious—"

"Who?" The boy whispered, looking up. Eyes like the stormy sea. "I'm not…from there."

"Oh." Lieu stared. Well…then. He hesitated, sheathed his weapon, stepped closer. "We need to get you to a healer—"

"No Waterbending," the kid whispered, shaking. "I—please—"

"I'll get you," Lieu stepped closer, and the kid shook, sliding back. "I promise. No healers." The boy hesitated, and then let Lieu pick him up, and they went back into the sewers, vanishing, leaving the three men unmoving, groaning as they started to get back up and move, and Lieu took the young man to get cleaned up.

"How are you an Airbender," Lieu asked, two weeks later, changing the bandages on the boy's face. He had given his name as Amon, of the Northern Watertribe. Nobody had been too weirded out by him joining them—he wasn't the only Bender in their ranks. "I thought Tenzin and his kids were the only ones."

"I don't know," Amon replied, looking down at his hands while Lieu finished unwinding the bandages about his face. "Nobody does, not even my parents. At first they thought that I might be the Avatar but…" he looked down at his hands. "I can only Airbend. Nothing else. Korra of the Southern Tribe is the Avatar."

"Might be someone a ways back in your family tree," Lieu picked up the tube of healer's salve and started rubbing it into Amon's burns—no healer, and he was going to have these scars for life.

"Yeah," Amon said quietly, looking down at his hands. "Maybe."

After he healed, Amon had joined their ranks. He took to Chiblocking happily, preferring to use that over his Airbending, since people started looking askance when he did that. And he very quickly became someone for people to rally behind—fifteen and he was at every planning meeting, advising Lieu and Hiroshi with quiet words and calm reassurances and good logic, his plans helping them make up ground against Tarrlok and the Metalbender Cops. He took to wearing a mask to hide the terrible scars on his face, destroying his features. And he and Lieu grew closer every day.

There was a rally, and it went over perfectly. Amon spoke, instead of Lieu, a memorised speech, and people cheered—he was still not exactly all that tall, but his voice had broken early, and while it still sometimes caught, he was more charismatic than Lieu would ever be. And people rallied.

Not that he wasn't still fifteen, underneath that. Because he was. He hated doing chores, spent long hours avoiding everybody and locked in his room when there was nothing else better to do, and got awkward crushes.

After the rally, waiting in the alley beside the building, Lieu was perched on his motorcycle as Amon climbed on behind him. "Celebratory noodles?" the older man asked as Amon settled into his spot, wrapping his arms around Lieu's chest and leaning against the back of his shoulder. "And sea prunes?"

"Definitely sea prunes," was the response, and Lieu kick-started the motorcycle, roaring out of the alley, only to skid to the side as four cars squealed around the corner. Police cars. The chase was on.

"Hold on!" Lieu shouted, and looked over his shoulder. "Get us some tailwind!" Amon's blue-grey eyes nodded back, and Lieu floored the gas and they went flying forward, his fingers clenched tight around the handles of the bike, the wind parting and closing around them, squealing around corners and into tight streets, trying to shake off their followers, losing the cars one by one until there was just one racing after them.

A glance in the mirror showed it to be Councilman Tarllok driving with the Chief of Police in the passenger seat. Amon throwing up a solid wall of air behind them gave them a few more moments before Lieu sped over a bridge, trying to get over to the other side, only for the ground to fly up in front of them as Beifong dragged it up.

They hit the ramp hard, Lieu losing control, Amon catching himself on air, launching off the bike and hitting the ground, rolling to his feet, pulling out his slingshot while Lieu threw himself free, hit the ground hard on one shoulder, and stumbled up as well, pulling both his kali sticks—barely keeping hold of the one on his now injured shoulder, lighting them both up.

They were a good ten feet apart as the motorcycle slammed into a nearby wall, and Beifong jumped out of the car, shooting her cables, only for Lieu to run forward, flipping over Amon, hitting the ground in front of him and spinning his sticks, to catch both her cables, lighting them up like the wire they were, the woman screeching in pain as the electricity lanced up her body, stumbling, and jerked them away, Tarrlok jumping out after her, the rest of their force skidding up behind.

Lieu glanced to Amon. The kid might be fifteen, but he was the closest thing they had to a leader, next to Lieu. And he wasn't a leader—he was the Lieutenant. Amon's eyes were narrowed behind his mask as he sent the slingshot flying, caught an approaching cop around the neck, threw him into the one behind him.

Their eyes met. Amon nodded. That was all the sign Lieu needed. Lieu had taught the boy to fight—they knew each other's styles as well as they did their own. Tarrlok came at them with a wave of water, icing it as it flew forward, Lieu dodging, using it to speed his momentum and slide forward, smacking the Councilman hard in the small of the back with one electrified stick even as Amon came flying, leaping over it, catching two cables in mid-air and jerking both cops forward, smacking them into each other, flipping to kick Lin in the back and down her before he launched off her shoulders and slammed into another one, using his momentum, and Lieu left the two big bads alone, joining the younger man.

He didn't notice his feet iced to the ground until too late, until Tarrlok had his hands too. "Enough!" the man shouted, and Amon paused. Lieu struggled, desperately trying to get free, his sticks flashing with electricity, and Tarrlok jerked the water around his wrists, slammed both of them into his own knees.

Only his boots and gloves were rubber. Lieu screamed in pain and would have fallen if it wasn't for the ice around his ankles, stumbling, dropping to his knees, only for Tarrlok to grab the top of his head and jerk his mask and goggles off, two cops taking advantage of Amon's frozen state to shoot cables toward his hands.

"Let him go!" Amon shouted, his voice cracking in the middle. He struggled against the bonds. "Don't you touch him!" Tarrlok sneered and grabbed Lieu's mask, jerked it off, snapping Lieu's head back as he did it, making his teeth click, his jaw rattle.

"Get a picture, boys," the Councilman said, coldly, and Amon shouted in anger, dragging on the cops that had him, only for two more to get his ankles. "Their Lieutenant and their poster boy."

"Go," Lieu groaned, loudly enough for Amon to hear. He had Airbending, he could still get out. "Get out!"

"No!" Amon screamed back. Tarrlok reached down, pried one of Lieu's kali sticks from his hand, and turned it, pressing the button. The end lit up, sparking brightly in the night. He smiled.

"Let's see how much you like it." And then he pressed it to the top of Lieu's spine and he shouted in hoarse pain, eyes rolling back in his head—the man had it pressed to a pressure point—and then something _broke._

_"No!"_ Amon shouted, throwing air, knocking all the cops that had him to the side, Lieu slumping, the ice on his ankles released, barely able to catch himself and avoid faceplanting on the pavement, laying boneless on his side, his entire body jerking in pain in the aftershocks, and he watched in quiet awe—

Amon's eyes were white behind his mask. Bright, glowing white. He raised up on a pillar of air, his hood flying back, hands out. Out of the corner of his eye Lieu saw Lin and Tarrlok move, turning.

"The _Avatar?"_ Tarrlok whispered in awe.

"No," Lin replied, just before she was hit in the chest with a gust of wind and went flying, Tarrlok next, Lieu's kali stick falling to drop into his field of vision, the rest of the cops scattering like leaves before a storm, the water under the bridge flying up, blasted by the winds, and Amon spun up walls of air, sending all the cars flying, eyes still glowing, before he fell back to earth, stumbling.

His eyes weren't white anymore. He barely managed to keep himself upright, taking three hesitant steps before he got his feet back and practically tripped to Lieu's side, hands shaking. "No," the boy whispered, grabbing at him. "You're all right you're _fine_—"

"You _are_ the Avatar," Lieu whispered, just as another group of Equalists came speeding around the corner, a trio on motorcycles. They had clearly heard and seen the commotion, dismounting and running to their sides. "Amon, you _are."_

His blue eyes stared back at Lieu in shocked terror


	2. Acceptance

"You'll be fine, Lieutenant." The nurse smiled down at the older man. "It's not a deadly shock anyway."

"Are you certain?" There was an element of terror in Amon's voice, the adolescent half-pacing.

"I'm _fine," _Lieu reassured him, rubbing the back of his neck. The nurse had put some burn salve on it, it was just a light electricity burn, and put a gauze pad as a bandage over it. "In a week or two it'll be a scar and you'll forget about it."

"Just avoid any strenuous activity for the next day," the nurse warned. "The shock probably set your body a bit off-kilter, you should make sure everything about your balance is back to normal before you start overusing it again." She reached out a hand and helped the Lieutenant to his feet, and he gathered up his mask and goggles and the harness, tucked them under one arm, and the generator under his other.

"Thank you, Mei-Yi."

"You're welcome, Lieutenant. Go get some rest." She smiled brightly and Lieu smiled back for a moment before he took a few steps, almost stumbled, and Amon caught his arm, tugging his generator loose, and wrapped that arm over his shoulders.

"Let me," the young man said, voice quiet. Almost immediately when the other Equalists had arrived their conversation had been abruptly cut off and now that they were back underground, safe in headquarters, they still hadn't looked at each other. Lieu was the only Equalist that had seen what Amon was capable of. He was the only one with any idea.

The walk through the hallways was long and quiet, and when they finally reached the Lieutenant's quarters, he pulled away from Amon, fished in his pocket for the keys, unlocked the door, and stepped inside. It was dark, and he limped over to the lamp on the bedside table and flicked it on, dumping his discarded uniform bits onto the desk before he looked back to Amon.

The young man was still standing in the doorway, holding the generator tight to his chest. He slowly approached and set it down on the desk next to Lieu, and leaned up against the edge, looking down at his hands. It was quiet for a long time.

"Did you know you could do that?" Lieu asked at last, and Amon shook his head, still staring at his hands.

"No."

"That sure looked like the stories of the Avatar State I've heard." The Lieutenant sagged back so that their knees were almost touching—Amon was smaller than him, but he was tall for his age. "Could you do it again?"

"Probably." Amon sighed, reached up, pulled off his mask, and set it aside on the desk. "I just got so…angry." His eye were narrowed, his jaw clenched, lips pursed. "When Tarrlok went after you. It was one thing to use Bending but turning your own _weapon_ against you—"

"I'm fine now," The Lieutenant's voice was a low, quiet rumble, and he wrapped one arm around Amon's shoulders, tugged the young man closer, and Amon turned slightly, pressed his face into his friend's shoulder. "I've been through worse. I might be old but I'm perfectly sturdy." Amon snorted.

"You're not old. You're forty-two. That isn't old."

"Fifteen is still young," Lieu reminded him and let the younger man go, crossing to the closet, taking off his belt and hanging it on the peg on the inside, pulling free of his tunic awkwardly and tossing it into the dirty clothes bin, carefully toeing off his boots and then his socks to avoid hurting his knees, bruised and shocked as they were, before turning back around, plucking folded, loose shirt from the pile of clothes on the shelves of his closet.

Lieu didn't notice the way Amon's eyes lingered on the strong muscles of his shoulders and upper arms, the well-defined cut of his pectorals, the muscles of his abdomen, the dusting of hair that lead to the hem of his pants before the young man looked abruptly away and Lieu tugged on the shirt. He limped back over and sat down on the bed, wincing.

He was going to get Tarrlok back for those electrical burns one of these days.

"That's not what's important though." He folded his hands on his lap and looked up until their eyes met. "Amon, you are the face of the Equalists. You…you are our leader. Even as young as you are. And if you are the Avatar."

"But I'm _not!_" Amon said, his voice cracking, turning away. His shoulders jumped, his posture closed.

He was still just fifteen.

"They tried _everything_ when I was a child, to see if I could actually Bend all the elements but I _can't!_ Just air. And now I guess….that weird thing."

"The Avatar state."

"It can't be." Amon's voice shook. "That's Korra's job. I'm not anybody's reincarnation. I'm just a fluke."

Lieu sighed and rubbed at his chin. "Well, everything that I've heard points to the fact that the Avatar actually can't Airbend or connect to the Spirit World. It's talked about very quietly, of course, but—" They were the Equalists. Knowing this stuff was their job.

"I know, I've read the reports." Amon seemed to find his composure again and reached up, pushing back the hood of his uniform coat, running his fingers through the thick, dark strands. "But what does that have to do with anything?"

"My father was a fighter in the 100 Years War," Lieu began. "He actually met Avatar Aang, and had fairly coherent information of him. He used to tell us stories when we were kids—about how Aang got into contact with his Avatar state, and his past lives. Through meditation. You could try that."

Amon was very quiet and then turned back around, rubbing at the nose of his mask with the back of his hand. "They never did try that," he finally admitted, and Lieu smiled.

"Just a thought."

"Maybe later." Amon folded his hands behind his back. "Get some rest, Lieutenant. I will see you tomorrow. We'll have to debrief this."

"Of course. Sleep well, Amon." As much as The man was over twenty years younger than Lieu, he was still their leader. And after he left, the door closed tight, the Lieutenant leaned back on his pillow, hands folded on his chest.

And started to wonder about what they were going to do next.

It was on the fifth try for Amon meditating, three months later, sitting legs-folded on the end of the Lieutenant's bed while the older man tended to some scraped injuries on his back that it finally _clicked_ and worked. His eyes glowed. Lieu dropped the bandages and scrambled off the side of the mattress in surprise, hit the floor, banged his head on the side of his desk, and sat up, rubbing the back of his skull, eyes watering as he stared at the teenage boy that he had come to think of as a friend, a partner, a leader, and watched as his hair started to rise, almost like it was floating, his eyes just glowing.

Carefully, Lieu stood up, reached out, and waved his hand in front of the teen's eyes. No answer. Standing, Lieu walked and locked the door, finished carefully bandaging the young man's back (being careful not to budge him) and then started working on a stack of paperwork.

The clock on the corner of his desk had clicked past two hours before the glow receded from Amon's eyes and he slumped back on the bed, falling to the mattress, groaning as he stretched out his back, rolling his shoulders, trying to get the kinks free, and Lieu set down his pen, turned to face him, hands folded between his knees.

Amon rolled to the side and opened his eyes behind his mask. They were the same clear grey-blue that he was used to, but they felt somehow older.

"I'm _half _the Avatar," Amon said at last. "I managed to get into the Spirit World. Avatar Aang met me. He couldn't explain why it was, but that for some reason, the powers of the Avatar split in two. Korra was given the three elements, and I was given Air and the Avatar State, as well as the connection to the Spirit World." He held either hand out, two different things. "He's unsure about what we're supposed to do."

"So is the Equalists a no-go?"

"No, he said it is important, that it will help to bring balance." Amon sighed, his shoulders slumping, and rolled onto his back, hands folded on his stomach. "That the world is out of touch because Non-Benders and Benders should be equal—there shouldn't be this class divide. He didn't have any advice, though. Just told me to keep up what I was doing."

The quiet stretched thin and the Lieutenant finally stood, stepped to the bed, and sat down, reaching out to rub Amon's shoulder. His eyes closed and he sighed.

"How does it feel to be the Avatar?"

"Heavy. I never expected it. I don't _want_ it. I didn't want to be a Bender, let alone the Avatar—and besides, what am I supposed to do with it now? Go find Korra at the South Pole and casually say 'oh, by the way, you're a half-baked Avatar, either one of us needs to suck the other's bending out or we have to work together' and then just expect her to be happy about it?" He sounded bitter. He slumped more to the bed. "I just want to be normal."

"Do you not want to tell anyone?"

"Hiroshi. But other than him let's keep it secret—I'm not sure what we want to do with it, and I know Tarrlok and Beifong will not talk about it—they'll contact the White Lotus and go from there, but they won't be able to track us as long as I stay away from them. They won't want anybody finding out." He yawned, turned slightly, and leaned against the Lieutenant's thigh, dark hair sliding across his face, over the scars burned there by the Triple Threat. "We'll find some use for this," he mumbled.

Lieu kept unconsciously running his fingers through Amon's hair long after he had fallen asleep.

"The cops have got us backed in here, here, and here." Sixteen and his voice had dropped even further, he'd shot up a few more inches (repeatedly checking the measuring stick still put him at 5' 91/2" but he was waiting for the other shoe to drop) and Amon had come into his own as the leader of the Equalists. His face hidden behind a mask did nothing to dampen the sharpness of his mind and the power of his words. "Akuji, you and your two teams go in through the sewers. Take out the ones around the perimeter. Ruki, you take the rooftops—that will be our escape route, so it needs to be clear. Jun, you take the streets and provide cover. Lieutenant—" Amon glanced up, blue-grey eyes meeting the older man's, "You are with me and Hano's team. We go in the front door."

"Got it," the older man growled. "We'll get going at the signal. Everybody be at your start points in exactly fifty minutes. On my signal we will start. Don't forget the three meet-points—if you get separated, head back there." The four team leaders nodded, tugging back on their masks, snapping goggles into place, and went off to go find their teams, while the Lieutenant rolled up the map, tucked it away, and looked to Amon.

His hands were folded behind his back and his eyes were down, brows lowered. "Something on your mind?" The Lieutenant asked frowning slightly. Lately, Amon had been a bit detached. He'd been meditating more. And avoiding Lieu's eyes.

"Last minute jitters," was the reply. Amon squared his shoulders and looked up, his eyes set. There was determination in the set of his stance. "Lieu, I have a question." The older man glanced at the clock.

They could spare a few minutes. "What is it?"

Amon paused, and then glanced to the side. "Lieu what do you do when you…are romantically interested in someone?" Lieu blinked.

He'd known Amon for well over a year now, and never before had the young man shown any interest in anything outside of the Equalists. "Normally, you just explain your interest to them. Approach them, and tell them that you're interested in pursuing a relationship. Ask them how they feel about you." Amon was getting to be the right age, after all, and Lieu paused before adding sotto voce, "If it's an Equalist, you'll probably have a good chance—you are our leader, after all."

The young man stared back at him, and then slowly nodded. It was like any other advice he was ever given—it sank in like stones into a pool, and added to the growing pile of understanding that Amon had about the world, to be kept in mind and used when the time was right.

"Thank you, Lieutenant." He nodded, Amon was back to the cool and controlled leader of the Equalists—not the sixteen year old boy who had never had a girlfriend. "In that case—" he turned, calm grey eyes catching Lieu's from the depths of his hood, gaze unwavering. "Lieu, I find myself….attracted to you." And then his gaze did waver and he glanced to the side. "You're….my closest friend and I would be interested in pursuing a…relationship. If—If you were interested."

Lieu stood there for a moment with a dumbstruck expression on his face because _well shit_ here he had literally just told the man how to come onto him. But Amon didn't seem to be ready to back down, even if he wasn't holding Lieu's gaze.

"Look, I—" Lieu started, and then rubbed the back of his neck. "Amon." How was he supposed to say this in any good way. "I care about you very much and it's not like you aren't _attractive_ and I'm fine with men—but…Amon, you're a lot younger than I am. You're sixteen, I'm….forty-three." He hesitated, and reached out, set a hand on the young man's shoulder. Blue-grey eyes looked back. "You should find someone your own age. I'm sorry."

"Ah, yes—o-of course." Amon cleared his throat, fidgeted, and pulled away. "We'll meet in time for the signal, then." He walked to the door of the meeting room, one hand still behind his back, and mumbled, "Uh, can we just pretend that never—"

"Yeah." Lieu said, before he was even done speaking. Amon nodded and left and the Lieutenant stood there, awkwardly, alone in the room.

Part of being sixteen was awkward crushes, but he had never seen this coming. Well then.

"You need to get some rest." Amon looked up when Lieu shouldered into his office holding a pot of tea and a plate with fried noodles. "Wearing yourself out isn't going to do you any good."

Amon grunted and looked back down to the map on his desk. His seventeenth birthday had come and gone, and now Korra was in Republic City. The Lieutenant watched the younger man and then came over, set down the tea and the food, and reached out, hesitated, and set a hand on Amon's shoulder. He wasn't wearing his thick outer tunny—no hood up, no shoulderpads. Just the black undershirt, high collared and tight sleeved, and his braces. "What's on your mind."

"Korra." Was the immediate response. They had been training, quietly, away from the other Equalists, and Amon had finally mastered the ability to go in and out of the Avatar State, and was still working on Energybending. He had spent a lot of time meditating, and had learned of it from Avatar Aang. He would use it to equalise the world—starting with the Triads. "She's supposed to start her Airbending Training." He looked up, eyes closed off behind his mask. "At some point or another, she is going to realise that she actually _can't._ That no amount of meditating will ever help her get into the Spirit World. And then we have a problem." He sighed, reached up and pushed his mask up to his nose, pulling over the tea and sipping it. "If I can take her bending that's one thing but…" There was no point discussing something they didn't even have any idea how to fix yet.

"You haven't slept in two days," Lieu said quietly, hesitating, and reaching out to set one hand on the younger man's shoulder. His muscles were painfully tense. "Sit down and let me work some of the stress out of your shoulders and _then_ you're going to bed."

The look Amon gave him was so _painfully_ seventeen it just made him smile. Half-laughing, Lieu pulled off his mask and goggles and set them on the desk—no generator, not while it was just a normal day around home base—and tugged off his gloves as well and pushed the younger man down into his desk chair.

"Lieu—" he was half laughing as Lieu smiled, Amon tugging over the noodles, and pushed his mask further up to eat while his Lieutenant started rubbing at the tense muscles over his shoulders, working out the tightness, starting at the base of his neck and slowly moving out until Amon had finished the food and leaned back, hesitating before he pulled his mask off. He was taking it off less and less, and he set it on the desk, stared up at his friend, eyes quiet. He half-smiled, ruined lips tugged wide. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." Unthinking, Lieu started brushing his fingers through the young man's thick dark hair, tugging it away from the scars that covered his forehead, untangling the knots stuck in it from where his mask tied. "You're important. Don't work yourself sick." Amon's eyes slid closed and he sighed, reaching up to put his hand on top of Lieu's, curling his fingers against his skin.

It was very quiet. Lieu turned his hand over, so that their palms fit better together, and sighed. "Amon—" he began, but the younger man interrupted him, sitting up, turning around.

"In the Northern Water Tribe, at the age of sixteen, anybody, male or female, is old enough to get married." His expression was incredibly serious. "I'm seventeen now."

"You're also twenty-six years younger than me," Lieu pointed out. "I don't find you unattractive, but…" he wasn't like a son to Lieu. Not at all. He was like a close friend, the kind that you trusted with your back and your front. "Amon, you're too young for me. You're a very good friend but I can't feel that way about you." He tugged his hand away. "I'm sorry."

Blue-grey eyes looked away. "Fine."

It was awkwardly silent until Lieu left, but he couldn't stop thinking about one thing—the seventeen thing was the same in the Earth Kingdom, too. And Lieu's own parents had been almost thirty years apart. It was something he didn't stop thinking about for a long while.

"You shouldn't be using that where Korra could see you," the Lieutenant coughed as Amon dragged him out of the water and onto one of the docks, the younger man's hands quickly moving over his body, looking over his bruises and injuries.

"It's dark, she wasn't even on the Arena roof anymore." Amon had jumped out of the airship, caught himself on a gust of wind, and found Lieu swimming toward land and grabbed him, and helped him swim back—he was holding one arm awkwardly. The water at the height he had fallen from was not exactly all that much like water and a whole lot more like hitting pavement. It was not in the least bit comfortable and he had managed to catch most of the pressure by diving in, but at the same time, his arm was dislocated. Grey eyes watched him from behind the slits of the mask and Lieu stood, tugging off his mask and shaking out his hair, spitting out the water still in his mouth with an unhappy expression before he started shaking off the worst of the water.

Yue Bay was not exactly the cleanest water in town. Amon stood as well and carefully helped Lieu get his dislocated shoulder back in (which resulted in some rather pained noises) before he took the man's wrist. It wasn't broken, but it had been what had taken the immediate impact—definitely sprained.

"You fell a hundred feet off a roof, of course I came to check on you." His eyes were calm and honest. It was quiet between them for a moment before the teen shook off his hood and pulled free his mask, jerking it hard to get the water off of it before he just shot a blast of air over the back so that it wouldn't stick to his burns and looked up at Lieu. His eyes were bright in the moonlight, and his hair water-logged dark like deep water. His expression was still closed—worry. A hundred feet was a long way to fall when you didn't have anything to cushion you but your own body.

Both of them had wet hair, their clothes dripping, and it was silent. "Oh, to hell with it," Lieu finally said, stepped forward, wrapped one arm around the younger man's waist (his not-aching arm) and dragged him closer and they kissed.

Amon curled his hands in the cloth of the older man's uniform, tilted his head back, and made a quiet noise of acceptance and desperation and pulled him closer, and they kissed like breathing, like drowning, like dying.


	3. Faith

- Faith -

It was late, and they were still working. Recently they had _always_ been working. Understandably, really, since the Revolution was already begun and the city would be taken soon, but that still meant not a lot of sleep time. Amon had switched to caffeinated tea and his Lieutenant to coffee, and they were up together long after everybody but their night teams had gone to bed. The radio was crackling out a sleazy romance serial that Amon had been keeping up with—he kept pausing to listen and then returning to work—and they had both shed their uniforms down to the lower layers, Amon in his blacks and the Lieutenant in the loose tunic shirt and the darker, looser breeches that went under his outer layer, of the same fire-retardant cloth as the younger man's blacks. Amon still wore the mask, though, and Lieu's generator was set by his hand. No rest for the wicked, so they said.

"No." Lieu turned the map. Amon might have been a damn good strategist, but he was still seventeen. He was still learning. Lieu had over a decade of planning under his belt. Shifting closer to the younger man until their knees and thighs were pressed tight together, he turned around the pieces marking their ships. "Air Temple Island last—it's a stronghold, and hard to get to. If we can wait until we have the rest of the city, nobody will be able to come and get us. Once we get there we can _stay_ there. The docks will be closed, nobody will be able to take a boat. And hopefully, there we'll be able to capture some part of Korra's entourage."

"Fair point." Amon's chin was on his hand, blue-grey eyes narrowed as his mind raced along, clicking through plans. He picked up all the pieces that showed their airships and plucked them from the board and re-lay them. "Step one—take down the Council. Without them, the police will be acting headless. That's your job—" they had an Exterminator uniform all set up and everything. "And we put all of them underground, separate. Tarrlok—I'm not certain what we do about him." He was the biggest issue when it came to the council.

The Lieutenant didn't say anything. He knew what they _had_ to do, but Amon was still loathe to use his Avatar powers unless he absolutely had to. When he had done it to Zolt and the others at the rally of the Revelation, everybody had been too distracted by the fights going on, and too far away, to see the flash of light in his eyes. Tarrlok already had seen the full use of his Avatar powers when the man had accidentally triggered the Avatar State, but that had been before Amon had accepted his identity.

He had accepted it, he just needed to believe in it. He was still, for all his power as a leader, scared of himself.

"From there, we knock out the main power lines of the city. A few well-placed bombs should take down the main thoroughfares and close them, giving us more time. We can also cut the telephone and telegraph lines throughout the city. We'll use our own to get messages out and in." They ran underground, through their tunnel network, in and out of the city. Beneath the bay, even. "Then we take down the police—knock-out gas through the vents should do the job fairly well, and we can go in with our masks to clean up the mess. Mecha tanks outside to catch anybody who makes it out. And, simultaneously, we head to the Island." He paused, looked over at Lieu. "You lead it."

"I—what?" the Lieutenant blinked. "Shouldn't you be there?" Amon made a quiet noise of thought, leaned forward, steepled his fingers and leaned on his thighs, and set his chin atop his fingers.

"There are two good reasons that you should go there. First, you're more used to fighting Airbending than anybody else in our ranks." The Lieutenant shrugged—that much was true, he had spent plenty of time sparring with Amon, who used his skills sparingly but he _was_ the Avatar, he had to keep them sharp. "Second, if I go, I will be out of the city. I need to be here, to coordinate our forces. As wonderful as Hiroshi and Weilan are, neither of them are commanders." Weilan was the head of their communications division—she was basically the next person in the chain of command. "If something goes wrong, I need to be here. So I trust you with the island."

"If I fail?"

"Just don't get killed. I _want_ Tenzin and his family to get away. If they don't, we'll have to deal with a rallying cry for me to take the Bending from his children. People in our own ranks will want us to use them as bargaining chips. I would be all right with that with the Avatar, or Beifong, or Tenzin himself but…not children." His voice got very quiet. "They deserve to remain children a while longer. They're too young. They need to get out of here."

Lieu hesitated, reached out, and set a hand on his leader's shoulder, pulled Amon closer, pressed his nose to the top of the younger man's head, and tugged him over until Amon was leaning on his Lieutenant's chest.

"You were too young to be thrown into all of this," he said quietly.

"Avatar Aang was twelve. I had three years more than he did. I'll just count my lucky stars all that they did was disfigure me and nothing more."

"I don't think they disfigured you," Lieu replied, pulling back, and then sliding one thumb under the edge of the young man's mask, pushing it up until he could slide it off his face, set the porcelain aside on the table, and leaned forward to kiss Amon softly, one hand sliding to cup the back of his neck, the other set on his cheek. "I think you're beautiful."

Amon sighed and grabbed for the older man's shoulders, pulling him closer, making a quiet, broken noise in the back of his throat, sliding on the couch so that they could turn to one side, Lieu above him, one hand slipping over the collar of his shirt, pulling him closer.

"Please just kiss me," he whispered a moment later, voice wet and shaking. Lieu moved his hand from the younger man's cheek to curl around his waist, leaned further over him, one of Amon's legs locking around the older man's waist, tugging him closer until their bodies were slotted together, the background noise of the radio totally forgotten in favour of kissing, teeth and lips and tongues, Amon moving one hand to slide it up under the older man's shirt, setting it on his stomach, pulling him down harder by the inside of his shirt, widening his legs to lift the other around Lieu's waist as well, locked together on the couch, no words, just touch—

The radio started crackling and then rapidly beeped six times, high-pitched. They broke apart at the same time, Lieu jerking back, Amon's eyes flying open, and he scrambled, grabbed the radio, pulled it closer even as the Lieutenant grabbed for a piece of paper, scribbled down quick notes as the radio beeped. It was Equalist code. The six beeps had meant an urgent, emergency message. Lieu kept scribbling every set of sounds, long or short or wavering, while Amon grabbed for his mask, tugged it back onto his face, and listened carefully.

The message stopped. Lieu looked up. He felt flustered, and the top of Amon's neck and the remains of his less mangled ear were flushed red, and he took a shaking breath, gulping loudly, and looked over at the older man.

"Do you need—"

"Already translated." Amon had memorised almost all of their codes well enough to translate or respond on the fly—even making room for the codewords. "Tarrlok and Avatar fought in Council building. Tarrlok captured Avatar. Left city by way of car. Awaiting orders. Amon respond." He looked away from the Lieutenant and stood, adjusting his clothes—the part of him that wasn't the leader was shutting down. He started pacing over a well-worn line in the carpet of his office. "What do we do?"

"I don't know," the Lieutenant looked down at his paper with the codes. "If Tarrlok has her, he's going to try something. Use her as a hostage, maybe, but for what I don't know. Why did he even _capture_ her?"

"Nothing," Amon said, stopping, facing away from his Lieutenant, arms folded behind his back. His shoulders shifted as he sighed. "We can't do anything. He is almost certainly going to blame this on us—we're the only people he _can_ blame and I can't exactly come out and say I don't need the Avatar because I _am_ the Avatar. No." He turned around, eyes hard. "We wait. Anticipating his moves at this time will only hurt us in the long run. He clearly isn't thinking straight, this isn't the Tarrlok we're used to. This is the Tarrlok that electrocuted you with your own weapon in vindictiveness." Lieu rubbed at one knee—he still had a few faint scars from that. Tarrlok hadn't, exactly, been careful with the power he had at his disposal that time. "He's operating on fear and adrenaline. If we wait, he'll give us an opening." Amon pulled his hands from behind his back, curled one into a fist, and punched it into his other one. "Right now, we prepare for the backlash."

"Which will be…"

"They will come to see if we have Korra, at the least. At the most, they could decide to mount a full-scale attack. If that is the case, it could destroy our plans. We need contingencies, preparation, we need to be ready. I need to respond." The Lieutenant nodded and Amon grabbed the reworked telegraph that was their method of sending messages, set it on his desk, and stepped back while Lieu hooked up the wires to the radio receiver, and made sure that it was patched into their telegraph system before he looked up at Amon.

"The Mouth speaks. Water acting on instinct. Wait for backlash. Do nothing. The Mouth is silent." _Amon's orders—Tarrlok acting on instinct. Wait for backlash. Do nothing. Amon out._ The Lieutenant patched it through in quick code, and they waited until it aired on the same romcom station as most things they sent did. And then it was quiet for a few minutes in the office until the radio responded with a quick burst of static and noise—

_The Mouth is heard._

Now they would wait.

"They're coming," the Lieutenant said it quietly as he stepped back from the telegraph machine, and Amon looked up from where he sat at his desk. Tarrlok had reacted just like Amon had predicted he would—dumped the blame on the Equalists. And, just like they had expected, Korra's crew of sidekicks with clear hearts but unclear motives was already on their way, searching for them. The younger man sighed. "It's Beifong, the Fabulous Bending Brothers, Hiroshi's daughter, and Councilman Tenzin. Nobody else. What do you want to do?"

"Let them come." Amon said at last. "Don't stop them. Lead them in and lead them here. Get a couple of riders to make sure they find us. Make sure there's a tram that takes them to the prison—if we don't let them find us they'll send out a larger force, and that could be disastrous." He stood. "Beifong will bust out her cops, that much is certain, but let her. Clear out as many Equalists as possible—they can meet us on the way out."

"No." the Lieutenant crossed his arms, voice calm. "They can meet _me_ on the way out. Amon, if they find you, we're in a whole different pot of water. How certain are you of Korra's abilities?"

"She can contact our past lives—but nothing else. And even then, it's like…a bad radio signal." Amon's eyes frowned. "Aang has been trying to get in contact with her, I've been able to feel it. Like a bad headache—he's been using me as a telegraph line to hop the signal to her. If she concentrates enough, she might be able to catch onto it."

"What do you know?" Lieu asked quietly.

"Nothing." Amon sighed. "I need to meditate and figure it out."

"You do that." Lieu grabbed his shoulder. "Take to a safehouse above street level. I'll deal with everything here, I'll come and get you immediately when they've cleared out."

"I'll figure out what to do from there." They paused, two men for a moment, and then Amon stretched out, took his Lieutenant's hand. Lieu squeezed it.

"Don't go all Avatar on me and don't come back."

"I'm just glad you don't hate that part of me."

"I could never hate you. Let's move." Amon let him go and they did so, the young man leaving off his mask and instead bundling himself in civilian clothes and a scarf, the Lieutenant heading off to deal with the Avatar and her team of sidekicks, to make sure there was as little collateral damage as possible and to keep them off their backs, while Amon made his way to street level and to the nearest safehouse, a good two blocks away (a shabby apartment) and got in, locked the door, lowered all the blinds, and sat down. Took deep breaths. Tried not to think about Lieu and his men.

And meditated.

For weeks he had been getting visions as he fell asleep—flashes of half-formed things. Things that were sort of bouncing off of him, and going flying toward Korra. Before now Amon had never thought about how close their connection was—but if he concentrated hard enough on what the Spirit World was telling him, what Aang wanted her to know, he might be able to find her. And Tarrlok with her.

Deep breaths. He thought about nothing—about his breathing, the beat of his own heart. The air, heavy and thick around him like a solid being, pressing in on him. Closed his eyes, opened his mind.

And it began. It started off as flashing images and then solidified, into Avatar Aang's face. And with him, Toph Beifong. Amon could feel himself being used as a signal wire, could feel Korra tapping through him, their connection strong enough, as it began to play like a picture show. Aang, Toph, and Yakone—Yakone, who looked startlingly similar to Tarrlok. The same eyes the same stance. Similar voices. And it all began to make sense.

The pieces fit together so surprisingly easily. Aang removed Yakone's Bending, with Energybending in the same style that Amon had learned from his Past Life, and that was it. That was the answer. Tarrlok was his son, it had to be that, that was what Aang had been trying to warn Korra of as the other half of his Avatar incarnation attacked him repeatedly, using Amon like a signal tower—

And then it hit him. Cold. Snow. Ice. A mountain, a path, a truck. A large metal box, screaming a woman's voice back at him.

A key turned in the lock. Amon jerked himself almost painfully out of the Spirit World by force of will alone, slid off the bed and barely caught himself, rolling to his feet. He could still feel it being sent to Korra, breaking more slowly to her without her connection to the Spirit World than it had to him, and he was already in fighting position when the door opened.

"They took the cops and went, they're heading back to city hall—Tenzin put two and two together, he knows Tarrlok has Korra." The Lieutenant slammed the door closed and tossed Amon his uniform, the adolescent practically ripping off his civilian clothes and sliding his mask back on.

"Tarrlok is Yakone's son."

"I—wait, what?" Lieu blinked, taken aback. "How did you—"

"Aang showed me, he's been using me to contact Korra through her limited connection to our past lives for months. He's a Bloodbender, and has her on top of one of the nearby mountains. If we hurry, we can get follow him to get there." Lieu still had on an expression that read in translation as _weird Avatar stuff_ but he waited as Amon buttoned back on his coat, his blacks kept on beneath his civilian clothes, and tugged on his bracers, stepped into his boots, and threw up his hood. "Get the quickest team. We need to go—we have to beat Tarrlok back, because once he's there who knows what he will do."

"On it." The Lieutenant turned away and started moving, Amon following him, keeping his face hidden—the apartment building was mostly empty but for squatters and their safehouse, and it took less than twenty minutes to have a team of Equalists thrown together and piled into the back of a truck, Lieu driving and Amon in the passenger's seat, following his instincts and his other half, until they were halfway up one of the mountains.

Then Tarrlok led them right there. Directly to his hideout, Lieu driving far enough behind him while Amon threw up snow with Airbending shot out the window to hide them from Tarrlok's mirror (not like he was probably thinking clearly enough to do anything at the moment had he seen them, let alone look over his shoulder) and they waited around a bend until he vanished into the house before Lieu parked the truck and they moved in as a team.

Amon took point. It was almost silent in the house except for Korra and Tarrlok shouting at each other in the basement, and the Equalists moved without making any noise in their footsteps, Lieu to Amon's left and the rest behind them, standing at the top of the stairs. Surprise would be their element here.

Tarrlok was a Bloodbender. Yakone's _son. _He could to it at will. When it finally went silent downstairs except for Korra's banging, Amon narrowed his eyes, let out a slow breath. The Lieutenant felt him shift. Saw him clench his fists behind his back. There were footsteps up the creaky stairs, climbing toward them. The Lieutenant looked to his leader.

Amon's eyes were hard and determined. The footsteps got closer and Tarrlok's head was visible but he wasn't looking up, not until the final step did he—and then he froze like a deergazelle in the headlights of an oncoming Satomobile, shoulders tense.

"Amon!" He said, gasping.

"I do not appreciate being used as a scapegoat for your own heinous acts," Amon said, his voice cool and hard and determined. "It is time for you to be Equalised." He hadn't shared his plans for when they got there with the Lieutenant, but he clearly knew what he was doing. Lieu pulled his yantoks, the rest of their team pulled their slingshots, and Tarrlok took half a step back in surprise and alarm. But then his expression of terror shifted, and became a grin.

"You fool," he said, still smiling, raising his hands up in the air, clenching his fists. "You've never faced bending like mine." And then he jerked his hands. Lieu took half a step forward and then gasped a choking noise, the other three going straight down even as the Lieutenant struggled as hard as he could against the Bending, Amon's jaw squared, not flinching or shaking in the least, until his Lieutenant hit the floor, shaking, gasping for breath, fists clenched, his sticks dropped.

He was supposed to protect Amon. And now he couldn't. But the young man took a step forward, willing himself into movement, and Tarrlok slid back further toward the stairs as Amon kept walking without flinching, and then the Councilman jerked his hands and Amon ground to a halt, his knees locked, hands clenched into fists at his side.

He took another step forward, and the creak of his bones was loud in the air.

"You're not really the Avatar," Tarrlok whispered in terror, his voice shaking as Amon stopped again. He closed his eyes behind his mask, to hide the light as he felt the Avatar state overtake him, and opened them again, nothing but strength and resolve in his gaze.

"I am the solution," Amon replied, deadly serious, and took the last few steps, grabbed Tarrlok's arm, smacking the Chi points up it before he grabbed the man by the back of his neck, shoved him to the ground, and raised his thumb.

For a moment their gazes met. Amon's eyes flashed again, and then he pressed his thumb to the centre of the man's forehead, his eyes glowing bright as he used the power of Energybending, and then the older man screamed hoarsely and fell hard to the ground, unconscious, and Amon almost stumbled. Almost. He straightened, took a deep breath, and shook it off. Energybending was a contest of wills, and it was not easy to do. Lieu was the first one up, shaking off the pain in his muscles and his bones, looking to the younger man. Amon stared down at the unconscious form of Tarrlok and then knelt, tugged him over one shoulder.

"Electrocute the box the Avatar is in," he said quietly. "And don't underestimate her." He then stepped forward and added very quietly to his Lieutenant, "Just make sure she's not going to follow us." The Lieutenant nodded.

Tarrlok was dealt with. They would avoid Korra as much as possible until there was no other choice. They had done what they came to do. And that was all.

"That's the last one." The Lieutenant tossed the Earth Kingdom representative into the jail cell along with the other two they had captured from the council—they were gagged and bound, Amon had blocked their Chi but not fully removed their Bending, and all three of them were just starting to come to. Tenzin had escaped, and Tarrlok was elsewhere with a close eye kept on him. Brushing off his hands, the Lieutenant tugged off the gloves of the blue exterminator uniform and looked to the three Equalists keeping guard. "If they try anything, just give them light shocks." They nodded and he left, unbuttoning the collar of the coat.

Step one of the invasion plan was down. The council, minus Tenzin, had been captured and taken into custody. The police force was already falling, they had just gassed the building. Now the Lieutenant just had to get back in uniform and head straight to the island for the other half of the attack.

Returning to the room that was nominally his on the airship, he stepped inside and closed the door, plucking the hat from his head, and turned around.

Amon was sitting on his bed, with his uniform already set out. The Lieutenant paused, and then unbuttoned the coat, tossed it onto the bed next to the younger man, rolled his shoulders, his undershirt loosening, and raised one eyebrow as he unbuckled his belt and pushed off the blue exterminator pants, down to the blacks beneath them, and grabbed for the outer pants of his regular uniform. "Shouldn't you be out there leading?"

"In a minute." Was the response. Amon looked subdued. He watched from the slits of his mask while the Lieutenant changed, eyes lingering on the older man's muscles, the flex of his shoulders, the tensing of his thighs, as he slipped back into his usual clothes, strapped on the harness for his generator, and settled the familiar and heavy weight onto his back, shoved his feet into their boots, and jerked on both of his gloves.

Amon watched him and after a moment, stood up. He hesitated and then carefully checked Lieu over, like he was looking to make sure everything about him was working—ran careful fingers over his ribs, checked the bruising on his back from where he had hit the wall when Korra had Earthbent him, the muscles of his shoulders, and then just as the Lieutenant was about to slip on his mask, the younger man pushed up his own.

It was quiet as Amon held it one-handed, and stepped closer to reach up, hesitantly touch the older man's cheek. "Be careful out there."

"I will be."

"You know Korra is going to show up. She's knocked you off one too many high places."

"She's only knocked me off one high place."

"Just _be careful._" He hesitated. "You aren't as young as you used to be."

"I think that statement stopped applying to me just about when you were born." Well, soon after, anyway. The Lieutenant cupped Amon's cheek, pulled him closer, kissed him. The younger man made a quiet noise of acceptance and pulled him back and deeper, tilting his head to deepen the kiss. "I'll be careful though. And rest assured, I will come back mostly unharmed."

"Just don't get knocked off of any high things," Amon said it into the kiss, pulling the man closer and sliding both his arms over the Lieutenant's shoulders to grip the cloth of the back of his shirt. He had finally reached the end of his growth spurt (probably) and they stood at close to the same height, so kissing like this was significantly easier. Lieu put one hand on Amon's hip, tugged him closer, the other cupping the small of his back, and then, almost regretfully pulled away.

"We've got a war to win," he said, voice gruff. Amon reluctantly let him go.

"Go win it."

"Hey," The Lieutenant said, pained, from where he was trapped in a tree. Amon, standing on the ground, frowned and crossed his arms.

"I thought I told you not to get knocked off of any high things."

"I jumped at Korra's dog and got smacked over the edge of the cliff—there wasn't much I could do about it in mid-air." The Lieutenant smiled, but it was a strained look. "I improvised to land in the trees instead of crushing myself on the sand."

"I like this alternative better." Uncrossing his arms, Amon shot off a few quick, sharp air blasts that cut the branches holding up his Lieutenant and then threw up a quick pillow of air to catch him as he crashed to the ground. "How badly are you hurt?"

"Plenty of bruises, a few bad cuts and a lot of smaller ones, and some broken ribs. I think I might have sprained an ankle and dislocated my shoulder again too."

"I'll get you fixed up back at Headquarters." Amon gave the older man a hand up, held his wrist tight, and then paused and quickly ran a diagnostic check of his own, pressing careful fingers and palms over his Lieutenant's ribs, his shoulder, side, and then (assured that he really wasn't badly hurt in any way) wrapped careful arms around his torso and gave him a hug, turned his masked face into the side of his neck, and pulled back.

Lieu kissed the circle painted on his forehead, and then shifted his weight to his unsprained ankle as Amon bent over and walked to pick up both his kali sticks, one fallen nearly into the surf, the other laying in the mess of sticks and twigs and leaves that had been knocked free of the trees when Lieu had crash-landed, and handed them both to the older man, who stretched, wincing, to replace them in their holsters before he tested the weight on his ankle—not badly enough sprained to stop him from walking. His ribs were more worrying.

"What did I miss," the Lieutenant asked, falling into step beside Amon as the younger man stared back up the hill to the top of the island over rocky crags, the Lieutenant avoiding anything that could potentially cause him to twist his sprained ankle even further.

"Korra and her trio of sidekicks got away, as did the Airbender family." Amon folded his hands behind his back as he walked, still keeping an eye on Lieu. "I am glad. I can't refuse to take their Bending, not in the position I am in—and bringing children into the conflict will destroy any validity our revolution has. Lin Beifong was captured."

"Are you going to—" Lieu began, and the younger man looked back at him.

"No. Not permanently. I will block it, the way I have for everyone else so far that wasn't abusing their power—no Energybending. She will have full use of it back in about three months, but….if we don't, she and her other policemen will cause us too much trouble in the long run. I would like it if you stood with me while I did it but—"

"I'm fine," Lieu promised, dragging himself up the last bit of slope onto the island, taking shallow, careful breaths. "I've had worse before and I will again, it's just some broken ribs. Amon's expression, his eyes, remained calm, waiting to see where his Lieutenant was going with this. "I can get fixed up later. I want to be by your side."

"I _need_ you by my side," was the response, and Amon took his Lieutenant's forearm, not in a brotherly clasp, but in a closer one, his hand sliding downward to clasp the older man's hand, turning to lace their fingers. "If you're certain."

"I am."

"Then let us reap the spoils of half a victory," was the response, smiling all the while.

"And now, my brothers and sisters, we will end this era of class divisions and usher in a new one—with strength of numbers there comes strength of unity. And our unity will allow us to change things for the better in the future." Amon clenched his fist, and the Lieutenant stared at his speech script. "The age of Bending-based oppression is over. Never again will anyone, man, woman, or child, be put down or hurt because of the Benders and their desperation for control. We will change this world." He smiled—his eyes did. "Together."

The Lieutenant watched him, and then nodded, grinning. "You've got it." Amon did a fistpump of success and then half-jumped before he calmed down again, letting go of his seventeen-ness and returning to the subdued adult he was finally starting to become. Lieu folded up the paper and set it aside on the younger man's desk before he laced his hands behind his neck and leaned into the younger man's office chair.

"I'll practice again tomorrow and run it a few more times before the rally." Normally Amon only ran the speeches until he had them memorised, but this time was particularly important. This was meant to be their crowning moment. They had better get it right. There were still two days left until the rally, though, and they were awaiting the arrival of the United Forces—it had already been three days since they had been contacted. "You think it's good?"

"The best you've ever written. You'll have them cheering in the streets before you're done." Amon hesitated, and then his eyes smiled again. He reached up and undid the knot holding his mask on and set it aside on the desk as well, leaned up against the edge of it, and folded his arms over his chest.

It was early—Amon had fallen asleep at his desk late the night before and woken two hours prior to now, around false dawn, clawing at his own face in his sleep and shaking, terrified, and gone to find his Lieutenant. The older man had been slightly harder to rouse but as soon as he heard the word _nightmares_ he was up, holding Amon until the younger man calmed down, running fingers through his hair, whispering promises into his ears, until at last he was soothed back to normalcy. After that they had sparred for half an hour, and then Amon had worked on his speech—so they were still in their sleep clothes, the Lieutenant just with an undershirt over his normally sleep-bare chest, and Amon still in his blacks, socks on to keep his feet warm.

The waiting game was starting to get old.

"How are you feeling?" Lieu asked, watching the younger man's profile, mangled as it was. Amon shrugged.

"I'll be fine once the UF arrive. I want as few casualties as possible, even if they _are_ soldiers going to war—military or civilian, killing people isn't going to do us any good in the long run." He rubbed at his chin and sighed, closed his eyes. "Even if we probably should aim to take them out as much as possible I…can't." He let his hand drop, and stared at them, resting just on top of his thighs. "Killing people isn't right. Killing makes us just as bad as the very thing we strive to destroy."

The Lieutenant didn't say anything—he agreed with Hiroshi that there was going to have to be some death in the long run, they had to take down the fleet and sink the ships into the harbour and they couldn't possibly save _everyone_ from the boats as much as Amon wanted to try. It was his youth showing. And his foresight as well, surprising from someone his age as it had been two years before. There was no way they could come out of this without blood on their hands (why Lieu tried as much as possible to keep the dirty business to himself, and not get it anywhere near Amon) but the young man wanted to try. He was still young, still an idealist. Hiroshi had been an Equalist for ten years before Amon had come along, Lieu even longer. Their idealism had eventually turned to hardened hearts and absolute, unflagging devotion to the final goal, no matter what had to be done.

Amon had changed that about them both, but the cynicism still remained.

"And it will allow the United Forces and the Fire Lord, along with anybody else involved, to paint us as utter villains," Amon turned more toward his Lieutenant. "Which will be even worse. As long as we remain revolutionaries, the people all over the world will be on our side. We _need_ that."

"We do." Lieu nodded. "We'll manage somehow." Amon's expression flickered into a smile as Lieu reached out, laced their fingers together, tugged the younger man closer. "That speech really is going to be something, though. You gave me goosebumps a few times and you aren't even in public yet."

"Really?" Amon was incredibly charismatic, a hell of a public speaker, but he was still seventeen. Still awkward. He was still so young—and so unsure of his own abilities.

"I think if anything will rally together the people of Republic City, that will." Amon shifted closer, their knees brushing together. "You're young and strong enough to get their attention and their support."

"I'm growing older every day," Amon pointed out, their eyes meeting and their gazes holding as he took a half-step closer, sliding one leg up to wedge himself in the chair above the Lieutenant, his other still on the ground, to balance him, as he placed one hand on the older man's shoulder. "My eighteenth birthday is soon."

"So it is. You've already won the whole of Republic City—I'm not sure what else I can give you." Lieu smiled, wrapped one hand around the younger man's waist and pulled him closer until Amon had both legs on the chair, balanced above his Lieutenant, his strong thighs allowing him to sit up and giving him a few inches on the older man, something new and unusual.

"I can think of something," was the quiet reply. Lieu raised his eyebrows as Amon slid nearer, setting both his hands on the older man's shoulders, Lieu's hands moving to wrap around his hipbones, warm palms atop them, fingers curling around the top of his backside, tugging him down until Amon was sitting in his lap, one hand sliding up to knot in the older man's hair, the other wrapped still around his shoulder. "I wouldn't mind getting it early."

Lieu just kept his eyebrows raised until they were kissing, Amon's hand in his hair pulling him closer, the older man's thumbs rubbing circles on his hipbones. It was utterly silent but breathtakingly loud, blood pumping in both their ears, Amon moving closer until their hips were pressed together and aligned, Lieu's hands sliding—finally—up underneath his shirt, warm palms on his leader's stomach, moving gently up his sides over his ribs (Amon refrained from doing the same because Lieu was still pretty carefully bandaged up to avoid his broken bones) and the pads of his thumbs brushing over Amon's nipples, grinding gently against them.

The broken noise the younger man made into the kiss was worth it, the curling of his fingers in Lieu's hair jerking him closer, and he shifted closer, breath catching, fingers shaking, when the man did it again, half-grinding against him, rutting his hips, suddenly burning hot. The third time the older man did it Amon broke the kiss, pressed their foreheads together, moaning quiet and aloud, swallowing shakily, dragging his Lieutenant closer until the man was kissing the slope of his neck, lips just below his ear, nipping at the tendons just below the skin, nosing down the high collar of his shirt to suck at the hollow of his throat, Amon rocking slowly against him, getting hard, nails dug into the back of the man's neck, and then Lieu pulled away with a slight sucking noise and smirked against the younger man's skin—there was a mark there that wouldn't be going away.

_"Please," _Amon whispered, hoarse, fingers shaking. He didn't even know how to ask for what he wanted—he couldn't lead here, he was too young, too inexperienced, and that complete lack of knowledge left Amon feeling both out of his depth and exhilaratingly alive. Lieu kissed the underside of his jaw, the fold where it met his throat, and continued to smile.

Fortunately, Amon had someone very confident to show him what to do.

"I think maybe—"

Someone pounded hard on the office door. Amon jerked suddenly away, pushing his Lieutenant's hands out from under his shirt, sliding to his feet, brushing down his shirt, and scrambling to shove his mask back on, holding it there before he could tie it up. Lieu blinked, still trying to figure out was going on, and quickly flattened his hair before the knock came again loud and the door was thrown open.

The Equalist standing there was windblown—he had to have just come off patrol. He smelled like the ocean.

"The United Forces are arriving," he said, gasping for breath. Amon's chin rose, and he reached up, brushed up his collar until it was at the top of his throat again. "Hiroshi is taking off the planes—he needs you to give orders."

"I'm coming." Amon turned back toward his Lieutenant, who was already standing. "Make sure everything is under control." There was a look in his eyes that read _give me a few minutes_ and Lieu clasped his upper arm for a moment, his fingers lingered there just a few seconds too long, and he left the room, door closing behind him.

Amon held onto his mask a moment longer before he lowered it to the desk, turned around the edge of it, and banged his head against the wall, teeth grit, and used a few of the very colourful curse words he had picked up from the older man.

He had been _that close_ too.

"That's a lie, Amon." The voice rang out loud in the middle of the rally and Amon paused, lowered his hand, and looked up at the balcony that the voice had come from, just in time for Korra to tear off the mask of the stolen uniform she was wearing.

"Do you want me to—" the Lieutenant began, eyes narrowing behind his goggles, but Amon gave him the slightest, almost unnoticeable shake of his head.

"No. Let her talk." Korra stared at them, almost like she was waiting for the go ahead, and then began.

"Tarrlok told me everything." Korra turned to the gathered crowds. "He's been lying to you all along. He's a Bender, an _Airbender._ He kept it a secret from you so that nobody would question it." Amon stared at her, and then snorted aloud. It was a bit uncharacteristic, but he was still seventeen, and he shook his head.

"Avatar Korra, had you done your research, you would have known that I was an Airbender. I have never tried to hide it. Every man and woman on this stage knows I am an Airbender. All the Equalists _not_ on this stage know that as well."

"Yeah, well, how come I've never seen you _use _it?"

"Because Bending is an unfair advantage," Amon said quietly, "And should not be used so lightly as to be a toy, or a game. It isn't a gift, it's a curse. We use it as a way to differentiate class, when it should only be used to better the world. Wasting it like a sport is only cheapening the power it has. The power to change the tides or drown a family or break a fleet of ships or to end a drought. The power to destroy a farmer's fields," Lieu tensed beside him a that one— "Or to build roads and canals and houses. To stop a tornado or turn around weather to bring the wind and the rain. The power to stop a volcano from exploding or the power to kill someone's family, to scar them for life. It is abused, turned against women and children—just like it was used against me, when I was _fifteen_ and a group of Triad Benders attacked me in a back alley, just because they wanted some sport."

"That's a lie too," Korra snapped, leaning further over the railing. "Your face isn't burned off. You made that up, a sob story to get more support." Lieu's eyes narrowed. Amon's fists clenched, but he let out a slow breath, schooling his emotions.

"Very well, Avatar. I will show you the truth." He hesitated for a moment and then reached up. Lieu half-started forward, but Amon ignored him, brushed back his hood, and his dark hair was visible. He untied the clasp of his mask, and gripped it in his hand.

Nobody but the Equalist nurses, a few of the people that had come in at the same time he had, Hiroshi, and Lieu had seen him without the mask. It was the first time he had ever taken it off in public since he had gotten it. Two years he had been scarred for life. Two years that he had been cursed, something that would last until the day he died.

For a moment his hand shook in fear, at the coming pity he would receive, and then he pulled off his mask and looked up. The resulting gasp shocked the stadium into silence. His eyes were clear, his shoulders unshaking, but his hands were clenched tight, and he looked up at Korra. "This," he said quietly. "This was what they did to me."

His ears were two scarred, melted, nubs of flesh, one with the shell and lobe still intact. His hairline was pushed back most of the way up his head, giving him an almost Airbender-high forehead. His eyes were sunken deep in two blackened sockets, his nose twisted and drooping, his cheekbones standing out stark and blackened, his lips gnarled and twisted, his bottom lip turned out on the left side, more solid on the right, his upper turned in and revealing most of his gums.

"Avatar, we have ended crime in this city. People are now able to walk safely at night and not fear for their lives. Children are no longer terrified of Benders. And by the grace of the Spirits, never again will a fifteen year old be found in a backstreet and disfigured for life for _fun_."

Korra looked stricken. Amon set his mask back on his face, tied it up once again. "Avatar, if I could take my own Bending _I would._ I hate being part of something that has caused every war, every conflict, every destruction in history. The powers that leave women and children dead. Killed families and used for raw displays of power. The Spirits blessed me to bring balance to this world, the way that you clearly are _not._" The audience was silent.

"You cannot call yourself the Avatar if when faced with a conflict of such dire proportions you turn away and hide and call _us_ the delusional ones. Perhaps it's time someone else did your job." Korra was shaking, her skin oddly pale, her fists clenched at her side. "You use your powers only for Bending, and that is not what the position of the Avatar is. You are supposed to balance, and instead of balance you have widened the gulf even further. You have attacked us," he gestured to the Equalists behind him, "You would accuse us of destroying the lives of people when we have only permanently taken the Bending from people who would harm Non-Benders, people like Lightning Bolt Zolt and Councilman Tarrlok—who I may point out, you _believed_, even after he kidnapped you, Bloodbent you. And that's not even the tip of the iceberg of what you've done since you came here." He raised one hand, started counting on his fingers. "You threw my Lieutenant off the roof of the Arena, and had he not carefully landed in the water, you could very easily have killed him. You didn't even think about his life, tossed it away like it was a rag you had used to clean your shoes. In your different clashes with my Equalists in this past week alone, for example when you rescued Councilman Tenzin, you killed four people. They were in those mecha tanks you destroyed. You killed twelve over the past months, destroying their cars. I could tell you their names. Yui, who liked hot pot. Haldo, who was about to get married. Sana, who was _pregnant_ when you blew up her plane during the arrival of the United Forces. Utakal, with a two week old son. You killed them."

Korra looked like she was about to cry. Amon lowered his other hand, folded his arms behind his back, and sighed quietly. Lieu could see the way he sagged for a moment—he had heard the emotion in his words, raw and angry and surprisingly seventeen. He had been so composed up until he named the people that had died.

They had buried every one of them.

"You are not fit to be _half_ the avatar that Aang was," Amon finally said, voice cool and composed again, the emotion gone, just cold disgust for the girl he spoke to. Lieu half-snorted, but a moment later Korra erupted—quite literally with a shriek of incandescent rage and a blast of flame from her mouth and flung herself over the railing, holding herself to the wall with fire.

"Get everyone out!" Amon shouted, suddenly no longer the cool and controlled leader, and Lieu turned away, gesturing to the six on stage to start moving, exits opening as people ran out, shouting and screaming, and he was about to turn back to Amon when there was a crack of thunder and half the stage blew up.

Jumping back, smoke filling the air, Lieu was about to shout for his leader when Amon came rolling out of the smoke, falling into position beside him, and he relaxed slightly. Grabbed his kali sticks, drew them, and flicked them on, electricity racing down the sticks and crackling even as both the Avatar and her (tagalong? boyfriend?) came racing out, fire blazing. Korra shot a long ring of fire and Amon flipped sideways over it, Lieu just jumping straight up to land on the other side, but the one other remaining Equalist not clearing out the crowd got hit and went flying even as Lieu hit the ground and rolled forward, running straight at the Avatar's sidekick with his sticks crackling, throwing three jabs and ducking a flare of flame, catching the boy on one leg and getting him distracted long enough to knock out both his arms with four quick jabs, his sticks flicked off to do it, only for the young man to start firing from his foot.

"Shut _up!"_ Korra was screaming in the background, Lieu ignoring her, as she fired at Amon with blasts of flame that made the air crackle with their heat. She wasn't even going for strategy, just fighting with her anger, just kept throwing punches, Amon dodging easily, using her own lack of finesse and her own desperation against her. "Why don't you use your own Bending! Come on, Airbend me! Prove to me how you could be a better Avatar than I am!"

"No," Amon said calmly, and then Lieu used Korra's distraction against her to run behind her, and jabbed up her back.

She stumbled, gasping, and tried to firebend at the Lieutenant, who just sidestepped the swing. She tried again, screaming, and then Mako grabbed her by the back of her uniform.

"Let's _go!_" He shouted, and dragged her back behind the stage, kicking a blazing opening through the poster there, and Amon and his Lieutenant pivoted at the same time, running in the same form, teacher and student turned to leader and lieutenant but always equals, Amon jumping straight through the ripped hole and the fire, blowing just enough out of his way that when Lieu followed him there was no heat licking at his skin, and they both landed on the other side, racing into the hallways after the Avatar and her boyfriend, another wall of fire in their way but Amon blasted it out and they ran through.

Korra and Mako were halfway down one of the halls, panting, and Amon and the Lieutenant skidded to a halt, frozen beside one another. Lieu clenched his hands around his kali sticks. Amon remained very still. The two teenagers turned to stare at them, Korra looking until she held Amon's gaze.

"What about all the people you killed?" Korra shouted, shaking. "What about the United Forces soldiers that were floating dead in the water?"

"Avatar, there were thirty dead from that attack. Each and every one was given a full military burial with honours. There were plenty wounded, and every one was fished from the water, given medical treatment however minor or severe, and those too terribly injured to be held in jail cells have been kept in the infirmary. None have had their bending removed, just Chiblocked, like every cop was, and Lin Beifong was—it will wear off in about three months."

"Lin was only protecting Tenzin and his kids, why would you—"

"Because the airship that she blew up had one hundred people on it. We only were able to recover ten survivors."

"You've killed plenty more—"

"Avatar, it has always been the prerogative of the Equalists to never kill unless by accident or by absolute necessity. There are more peaceful answers than that. We Chiblock and in dire cases remove Bending, nothing more."

"That's just as bad as death!" Korra shouted, and her voice broke. Everyone was silent, and when Amon slowly spoke, voice cool but the Lieutenant could hear his anger simmering just below the surface,

"You truly think that of such as Asami Sato? The thousands of people who don't have any Bending? The many humans that you're supposed to help, to balance?"

"I—No—" Korra looked shaken. "I don't think that—"

"You just said that. You're not nearly ready for the weight of being the Avatar."

"Then who _is?"_ Korra shouted back. "Are you going to say you are?"

The Lieutenant looked to his leader. Amon's fists clenched. His blue-grey eyes narrowed—there was _purpose_ there. Purpose and solid resolve, determination. Lieu took in a slow breath, and all three of them stared at Amon, waiting for him to speak.

"Yes." He finally said. "I think I am."

Korra stared at him, her blue eyes wide.

"You're just an Airbender," she whispered, voice shaking. "And I'm not even sure how you're _that._ I am the Avatar—the Spirits chose me!"

"Then why can't _you_ Airbend," Amon shot back, and Korra screamed back hoarsely,

"I'm learning!"

"You can't learn." He said, quietly. "You were born on the fourth full moon of the month of the Harp Seal seventeen years ago, at twenty minutes past dawn." The Avatar stared at him, her mouth half open. "So was I."

"You're not seventeen," she said, gasping. "You're like—twenty-something."

"We were born at the exact same moment," Amon said quietly. "The reason that you can't Airbend is that _I_ can."

"That's _stupid,_" Korra shouted back. "Not possible!"

"Amon," the Lieutenant began, but the young man ignored him.

"Fine," he said, cooly. "Fine." And then he let out a slow breath.

Lieu saw his eyes close behind his mask, and then they opened again, flashing white, and he turned, blasting two shots of air that rushed down either end of the hallway, shattered both windows. Korra was staring at him, shaking, looking like she was about to throw up, and Amon turned toward her, caught her eye.

Just in time for her to tug a whole wave of water in through the window, sending it crashing over her and her sidekick's heads, swallowing them and the wave still rushing forward, trapped in the hall. The Lieutenant and Amon moved at once, Lieu jumping on top of the younger man and tossing him to the ground, taking the brunt of the wave hard on his back and protecting his leader, grunting in pain at the weight and pressure on his broken ribs, both of them holding their breath until the worst of the wave had stopped and Lieu stood, dragging the younger man up, holding his hand loosely and looking around. Korra and her Firebender were gone. The water in the corridor was up to their shins and Amon let out a slow, shaking breath. He leaned forward and sort of slumped into the Lieutenant's arms, leaned against his shoulder and held his hand tight.

"You all right?" Lieu asked quietly. "We need to get going. Hiroshi probably took out the second UF fleet already—we need to deal with the captured fighters." Amon nodded.

"Let's go."

They would figure out the Avatar thing later, but Lieu had faith—faith in Amon, who had faith in himself. He had accepted he was the Avatar. Now he just needed to do his job. And figure out what to do with Korra.

It was dark, and very late. They had finally sequestered all of their new prisoners, sent those that needed healing to get it done, and dealt with the aftermath of the failed final rally, and the airbase. The Avatar's boyfriend's brother, Hiroshi's daughter, and the Fire Lord's son were all captured there, along with Commander Bumi of the other fleet. Which meant rather a lot of cell shuffling and Chiblocking to make sure that they put everybody on careful watch, and father and son very far from each other, Iroh and Bumi in two entirely different areas of the jails.

When Amon finally blocked the last of their prisoners he was looking more than a little bit worn, and moved with the slow lethargy of someone who had been awake for too damn long, the teenage energy wearing off and leading to the teenage crash, and the Lieutenant finally turned the young man away just as he went toward his bedroom.

"Come on," Lieu said quietly, tugging the younger man closer and away from the direction of his own bedroom. "With me."

"But—" Amon began, and then yawned behind his mask and continued walking after Lieu, into his smaller room, the door shut and locked, and Amon watched him with calm eyes. They were too tired—his bones ached, and he was in turmoil inside. Now did not seem like the best time for this.

"You were strong today," the Lieutenant said, stripping down to his uniform pants and going digging in the laundry for his sleep pants, coming up victorious and shedding one pair before pulling on the other, Amon changing mechanically, his uniform coat bundled up and dumped in the older man's dirty clothes, his bracers tossed on the desk and his boots left by the door, down to just the plain, breathable blacks he wore beneath, and Lieu tugged him close. "Stronger than I've ever seen you. You're not a little kid anymore."

"Thanks," Amon drily replied, although his usual teenage ire was missing more because he was just tired than any other reason.

"It's true." Lieu held one of the younger man's hands in his own, pushing back the sheets and sliding into his bed, pulling Amon after him, and the adolescent practically fell onto the mattress, groaning in exhaustion, only to be wrapped in warm arms and held tight to a broad chest, a chin pressed into the top of his head. "You looked her dead in the eye and told her the truth."

"Now I just have to deal with the aftermath," Amon sighed quietly. "She's probably on her way to the South Pole now, or trying to get in contact with someone. There will most likely be a meeting and then we'll actually have to sit down and talk it out. People will be angry—and confused. _Everyone_ will be."

"You need to work through this. That's a part of the whole Avatar thing, right? You need to face your fears and the obstacles to grow to be fully realised." Although neither Amon or Korra would ever be fully realised. They couldn't—not in the situation they were in. Lieu sighed into Amon's hair, rubbed his thumbs on the younger man's back. They had been growing closer—hands held, hugs that were more than a little bit friendly, kissing where nobody else could see, one proprietary hand set on Amon's waist, or his shoulder, or his elbow. The night before the attack on the city Amon had fallen asleep in his lap at his desk, napping on his shoulder, mumbling quietly in his sleep but getting more rest than he would have on his own. The two times that they had gone any further they had been interrupted, and that was probably for the best. But this….Amon had faced himself, his destiny. His other half and stared her in the eyes. And if there was any night to share a bed, it was going to be tonight. "And we need to draw up our terms."

"We should send them out by the end of the week," Amon mumbled against his collarbone, shifting to get more comfortable on the bed built for one, drummed his fingers on Lieu's shoulderblade. "They will acquiesce, at least to the immediate three. We have the Fire Lord's husband and son—she's going to compromise." Lieu smiled. Amon was no doubt right. They wouldn't hurt either Bumi or Iroh, but they were leverage. And their demands were simple, really—one, a Non-Bending representative needed to head the council, and they had to be elected by the city. Two, the class divide and all laws making it all-but-legal needed to be struck down by the government, and three, all Triads and _all_ Bending related violence had to become prerogative number one in the city for justice. After that they had more demands, but those were the big three. Later came things like equal work opportunities for all, a destruction of the city living system that favoured Benders, and more. But the big three first. The Equalists were a force to be reckoned with now, lead by a seventeen year old half-Avatar, who was desperately trying to get into his Lieutenant's pants and so far had been cut off at every opportunity.

"We need to get some sleep before we do that, though." Lieu whispered into his hair, and Amon slid closer, buried his face in the older man's collarbone, and mumbled a single quiet statement. Three words. Lieu returned it, felt the younger man smile, and they fell asleep like that, wrapped tight in his bed, and in each other


	4. Accension

— Accension —

It was simple, really. Simpler than anybody had thought it was going to be. The first meeting was the last meeting, and it was scheduled very quickly. A representative came from every country—Fire Lord Honora, narrowed eyes and haughty chin, but willing to compromise because her husband and her son were Prisoners of War. Katara of the Southern Water Tribe, surprisingly calm, who smiled at Amon and didn't look askance at him, and asked him to take good care of her son, and how his scars were—but there was wariness in her eyes, and anger. Queen Kalaei of the Earth Kingdom, who came only at prompting because of how far removed she was, but arrived on time, and took her seat and folded her hands on her lap and waited. Unarock of the Northern Water Tribe, who was angry and vicious but was cut down faster than anybody could have expected, and Tenzin, of the Air Nomads, who blustered and boiled about POWs and his brother, but when the Lieutenant caught him and took him aside and explained what Amon had done for his children, the man calmed.

And at the other end of the table, Avatar Korra. She and Amon never looked one another in the eyes, and when they did exchange words it was tense. It was hard to tell who was more uncomfortable, but nobody seemed too surprised.

All three demands were agreed with, within limits. There was no election scheduled, not immediately after a revolution, although it would become mandatory with four-year terms starting from their current time with all those still on the council (bar Tarrlok), and the representatives of all nations would be elected from within the city, and had to be residents. All laws making the class divide all but legal were struck down unanimously, and Bending violence would become prerogative number one once the timespan that the police were Chi-blocked wore off.

The question came down to who would be the Non-Bender representative. It couldn't be Amon, although Queen Kalaei suggested it, unaware of his Bending, and he then explained his inability to be a Non-Bending representative if he was a Bender.

That, and of course, you had to be at least thirty to be on the Council, and he was seventeen. That caused even _more_ surprise when it was revealed—everybody had thought him to at least be in his late twenties. So, a compromise was reached.

The Lieutenant would be their Councilman. Amon would remove the Bending of those in the city who, like the Triads, broke the laws in such a way that they needed to have that permanent punishment. And nobody mentioned the Avatar thing, even though everybody there knew. The Prisoners of War were turned over.

And time passed.

"Lieu," Amon asked one night, sitting on the couch in their apartment—it was weird being above ground after so much time in the tunnels, weird to be out of uniform, but he was adjusting. The Equalists had been a part of his life and the formative event of his teenagerhood. What he was adjusting to _less_ was being half the Avatar. Even if the only people that knew were the people that had attended the meeting after the Revolution, the other members of the Council, and Lin Beifong.

He had refused to be outed (although like most secrets everybody had found out anyway), both for Korra's continued ease and his own distaste for the position. That did mean, however, that they had to work together. And it was in every way possible like mixing oil and water.

"Yeah?" Lieu rubbed at the side of his head, scratched at his jawline—he needed a shave. "What is it?" He turned the page of the bill he was reading over—one of the first ones he had brought up once on the council, now about to be made law. His was the last signature that had to go on it. It had taken almost six months to get passed through and okayed completely, but that was good enough. One small step at a time.

Amon's hand appeared over his page and plucked the pen from his hand, and Lieu looked up, the younger man leaning forward, his mask in his hands, staring at the opposite wall. He was still plenty busy, working as Lieu's assistant on the council, and helping Korra even if half of _those_ conversations ended in fighting.

"How do you work with someone you hate?" Amon looked over to him, and Lieu raised his eyebrows.

"Do you really dislike Korra that much?"

"I don't particularly like her Bending, but I like _her _less. She's… reckless." He sighed. "Impatient, and unkind. She doesn't think past the present moment or at all about the ramifications of her actions. She's sharp-tongued and childish and—and…" he trailed off and stared down at his mask, the eye slits staring back, and rubbed one thumb over the markings on one cheek. "She is all the things that I hate about Benders."

"Well…" Lieu sighed and rubbed his chin, closed the bill, and set it onto the table, turned toward Amon. "My suggestion is, try to find some starting point to go from. You two haven't exactly had the best of shared experiences up until now." For one thing, the night on Avatar Aang Memorial Island. The Arena. They had never actually gotten a chance to start from somewhere that wasn't their own respective positions on either side of the conflict. "Try to find something that _doesn't_ bring up bad memories between you two. It's probably meant that you two be so opposite. You're each half of the other—together, you counteract just well enough that neither of you can make a decision that the other will ever give full consent to. It gives room for debate." Lieu paused then, and sighed. "But you're right. She _is_ reckless. She doesn't see any impact of what she does, in either the short or long term. She's eighteen. She never had to grow up like you did."

Amon kept watching the face of his mask and turned, sliding closer on the couch, and pressed his face into the older man's shoulder. Lieu stretched, picked up his bill again, put it on his lap and set his feet on the coffee table, and wrapped one arm around Amon's shoulders, tugged him closer. "You're very adult for your age, never forget that." Amon grunted in response and turned more against his arm and sighed.

"She lost her temper today," he said, quietly, into the cloth of the older man's sleeve. Lieu reached up to run distracted fingers through Amon's hair, and pushed up his reading glasses with his other hand. "We were trying to talk to Beifong about the other members of the Triads already regrouping, and I suggested going after the rest of Triple Threat, since they're already without a leader." And because they were the ones that had destroyed his face. "Korra accused me of only wanting them to go down because of my scars. Argued that they had as much right to their Bending as anybody else. Said that I was too _biased_ to make the decision."

Lieu was quiet. "What did Beifong say?" She might be Chief of Police and he might be a Councilmember but that didn't change a thing about the number of times they had beaten the snot out of each other. Although there was mutual respect. Amon shrugged.

"She's not as angry about the blocking as she used to be, and believes that it's a good alternative to allowing them to either stay in jail with their Bending or run free—they never manage to learn anything by being in jail anyway. She stopped Korra, but still…" he sighed, and turned more into Lieu's arm.

"Let's go to bed," Lieu finally said, flipping to the last page of the bill and signing it, turning to kiss the top of the younger man's head. "Tomorrow, talk to her. Not about Avatar stuff." She wasn't their enemy anymore, and while Lieu would never like the way that she stood up for Benders, or her personality, she and Amon _had_ to be able to work together. He might not like many of the other council members (bar Tenzin, who was fairly easy to get along with, as well as being good conversation) but he could work with them. It was important for Amon to be able to do the same with Korra—especially with the situation that they were in. "You and her are polar opposites, in more than one way. This might just be part of that whole realising your Avatar self thing."

Amon made a quiet noise of distaste, but came along anyway, and they changed in quiet, and once they were laying in bed, sighed against the top of the older man's chest, closed his eyes, and inhaled his scent.

Lieu always gave the best advice. And for the sake of his own sanity, as well as being able to effectively do the job he had never wanted, Amon took it to heart. The new law would be announced the next day, and when Lieu got back from that, Amon would meet back up with him and hopefully, he would have better news abut how things had gone with Korra.

"All right, look." Lin slammed her hand onto the table and stared down the two Avatars sitting in front of her, one of whom currently was rubbing at his temple, the other of whom was sitting with her arms crossed and refusing to look at him. "If you two can't find a compromise about this by the time that I get back, I'm just going to arrest the entire Triad and since _I_ happen to agree with Amon, we'll go with that. I'm going to the unveiling now, and I expect my office to be in one piece when I get back!" Amon sighed and rubbed more at his temple. Korra still didn't look at him.

"I will make sure it stays this way," he said, and Lin nodded.

"Thank you."

They had been working as a team to deal with the Bending crime in the city for three months now, and it was going about as well as could be expected. Lin had been severely distrustful at first, but once she saw the quick thinking that Amon could do, his strength with strategy, and his ability to lead up close and without the Anti-Bending revolution in the way, she had started to come around. Especially since he had been willing to compromise with the force to just long-term block the Chi of criminals, instead of removing it completely (although he hadn't even really wanted to do that to just small-time Triad members) and Korra…hadn't.

In fact, it had taken two weeks of wheedling just to get her to agree to even sit in the same room as him.

Lin shook her head at the two of them—eighteen and with very different backgrounds, now having to work together where formerly they were irreconcilably enemies, it was no wonder that things weren't exactly going smoothly—and took her coat off the back of the chair. "If you two want to listen to the radio, you go right ahead." Korra scowled.

"Yeah there's no Pro Bending _anyway _so if Mask-face wants to listen to it _go right ahead._" Amon glanced at her, his actual expression hidden, and stood up, reached over to flick on the radio, and tuned it until it switched to station 54, the serial romance channel, and turned it up to be audible. Korra groaned as Lin pulled on her coat and belted it, heading for the door.

"Okay _seriously?_" She glared at Amon. "You actually _like_ this stuff?"

"It's at least got an overarching theme," he replied drily, leaning against Lin's desk and crossing his arms. "And no Bending." Lin took one more look at the two teenagers in her office and then stepped out, rolling her eyes and sighing, to head off down the hall.

"Seriously," Korra turned in her chair, leaned forward, and poked at Amon's chest—although she didn't touch him. "What kind of a problem do you have with Bending, anyway. It's a part of you. And you're a part of me."

"Actually, I think it might be the other way around." His eyes were deadpan. "Considering that _I'm_ the one with the connection to the Spirit World. Not that I particularly like the idea of you being a part of me." Korra glowered. "As for Bending, I dislike it because it makes people seem unequal. Some of the most honourable and intelligent people that I know are Non-Benders. The fact that they are slighted by our society is one of the most disgusting ways that Bending has taken over."

"Well, can they shoot lightning to power the generators?" Korra asked, crossing her arms.

"Considering that you've been shot by his lightning a few times, yes, they can." Korra scowled.

"Okay, the Lieutenant, him I guess I could see but—" Whatever she had been about to say was cut off by the radio crackling and then beeping. Loud. Six times.

"No—" Amon threw up one hand to stop her from talking, and turned the volume up, listening, one ear cocked. It continued to be the serial for a moment and then the beeping started again.

"Is that a telegraph—" Korra leaned closer, but Amon waved his hand to cut her off again, still listening, and then his expression changed—stricken. The beeping ended and then he stood up, hesitated, and grabbed her hand.

"It's Equalist signal code. Modified morse. Come on."

"Hey, let go of me—" Korra started, but he had already dragged her out of her chair and to the door of the office, looking around the halls before he figured out where he was going. "What are you doing?"

"It's from Meilan, our Communications officer." He was moving quick, not running, but dodging around corridors and following the lines against the ceiling toward what had to be the central communications office of the police force—that, and he remembered the maps from when they had taken the place out. "The message was, 'Triads attacked. Lieutenant captured. Bike crashed. Vanished. Awaiting Amon's orders.'"

"Wait, you guys are still _working?"_ Korra sounded angry. "I thought the whole point of this truce thing was that the Equalists were done!"

"We are," Amon clattered down the stairs to the lower level, jogged through the hallways and found the room with COMMUNICATIONS stamped on the door. Korra was still just behind him. "The communication lines are still up, however, and we have a few active groups making sure nothing happens to our representative." He sounded angry. "Although that apparently didn't work." He shoved into the office, and stood there, Korra just behind his shoulders. The officers all jumped, and one half-screamed when they saw the mask staring at him. "I'm assuming you have a telegraph machine wired into the radio." After a moment, someone hesitantly nodded.

"Yeah, right here—" he gestured at the telegraph machine, and Amon went over, pushing past the other people in the room.

"I need to use it."

"Uh…go….right ahead?" The man looked to Korra, who shrugged (just as confused as he was) and got out of the chair for Amon to sit down, the young man running fingers through his hair and taking a deep breath before he switched the station it was broadcasting on to 54.

And then he started tapping out the response. It was rapid the way he did it, clearly with years of practice, and a moment later, he sat back, turned up the volume on the station, and listened until it beeped through.

And then he sat, listening intently. Korra finally said,

"What did you send?"

"'Amon receives. With Avatar. Give details.'" He folded his hands together and continued listening and Korra scowled.

"Isn't that kind of redundant if you are also—"

"The code for 'Amon' is 'The Mouth'." He looked over his shoulder at her. "The code for 'Avatar Korra' is 'Her.' Just that."

"That's stupid." She snorted. "What does that even mean?"

"Nobody ever understands what it means when it just says 'Her.'" He looked over at her.

The six beeps came again and they both turned this time. Korra stared at the radio, still confused, and Amon closed his eyes, listening to quickly translate inside his head, and then he tapped out his fingers on the console, to make sure he had it right. The statement went on and on, and he started to translate aloud for her benefit.

"Lieutenant taken on way to unveiling. Attacked by unclear numbers—at least six taken down at scene. Bike destroyed. Blood on pavement. Signs of Triple Threat. Police have cordoned off. Awaiting orders." He paused, rubbing the chin of his mask, clearly thinking, before he responded.

This time the tapping was short. He translated it to Korra as he sent it. "Amon speaks. On way to scene of crime. Meet with two teams there ASAP." She kicked the leg of his chair.

"Add something before you hit stop." He looked up at her. "Avatar Korra coming along."

"No," he snapped. "You'll just get in the way. You don't know how to Chi Block, and you're a liability." She didn't know when to stop, she had no self control, and absolutely no respect for strategy or authority. "You stay here and tell Beifong where I went."

"No way in _hell_ am I letting you anywhere near a bunch of Benders who just kidnapped your magical uncle or something without coming along." Korra scowled. "You're a loose cannon."

"Oh, _I'm_ a loose cannon…" he replied, under his breath, but then tapped out an addition. "There, it says you're coming too now, are you happy."

"No, because I'm stuck with you."

"You don't have to come."

"I don't trust you anywhere _near_ Benders." Amon scowled as the response came through (_The Mouth is heard.)_ and stood up, left the space to the man who had given it to him in the first place, and started walking, hands folded behind his back. Korra jogged alongside. "Seriously, you can't just break in there and take all their Bending just because they kidnapped your friend."

"That's not what I'm going to do," he said, quietly. "I'm going to gather two teams—if it was Triple Threat, it shouldn't be hard to smoke them out, they only have five or six warehouse hideouts in the whole city, and we know about most of those and I know most are still not in usable condition, so it should cut it down to two with that. Then, we go in, one group through the front door to draw attention, and I and a smaller group slip in through the side. We remove any obstacles, knock out the ones in our way, get Lieu out, and leave. You can help draw their fire."

"That…does sound pretty solid, I have to admit." Korra rubbed the back of her neck, still keeping up with him. "So what first?"

"First, we meet up with the teams." Amon reached the back door of the police Headquarters and shoved the door open, stepping outside, one hand behind his back. Here was where the squad cars were parked, and he froze.

Lieu wasn't there. Just him, and Korra. One hand behind his back clenching, he turned toward Korra and sighed under his breath. "Do you know how to drive?"

"I—what?" She stared at him, and then pointed at herself. "I'm from the South Pole, what makes you think I can drive?"

"I'm from the North Pole, that doesn't mean anything." Amon scowled behind his mask. "I would have thought of anybody you would want to drive."

"Hey," Korra shrugged. "I ride everywhere on Naga. I don't _need_ to drive, and besides, Asami has a car and she generally takes us places. Can't _you_ drive?"

"No." Amon scowled. "Lieu generally drives. I don't have the best luck with cars."

"Well, I have _driven_ before," Korra shrugged. "I kind of crashed but—"

"I'm driving," Amon deadpanned. "It can't be that hard. Hiroshi said that the systems for the Satomobiles are relatively similar to the systems for the airships, the planes, and the mechs. I can figure it out."

"You can drive those things, but not cars?" Korra sounded incredulous, and Amon vaulted over the railing on the back platform of the police station, and ran his eyes over the cars until his gaze fell upon one with the future industries insignia on the hood and he went around the side, checked the inside of the car, and nodded.

"Considering that I was the _leader_ of the Equalists, it would have been pointless if I couldn't pilot those. The fact that I can't drive a car is just cars." Opening the door and climbing in, Amon stretched over and opened the other passenger door for Korra. "Climb in."

"I'm not driving anywhere with you."

"Just _get in the car,_ Avatar Korra." She scowled, but slid in next to him and jerked the door shut anyway, just in time for Amon to pause, look at the levers, and jerk them into driving position, turning the starter key in the lock (it was just left there) and the car rumbled to life.

He peeled out of the parking lot, and it wasn't really clear which one of them had a more surprised expression, although Korra gripped the seat significantly harder.

"I though you told them to get here right away," Korra said as Amon pushed past two of the police officers that had cordoned off the area. "I don't see any Equalists."

"They wouldn't come in _uniform,_" he said, exasperatedly, give her a side glance. "Regardless, there are none here. I don't recognise any of the people standing around."

"Well—it could be you just forgot what they look like?"

"Rest assured, Avatar, I would not forget what my troops looked like, if not just for their safety and my own, for the fact that I have very good visual memory." Korra snorted in a very unladylike manner and folded her hands over her chest, leaned on one leg, and stared at the mess that the police were surrounding.

Amon just ducked under the roped off perimeter (they had let the Avatar through because she was the _Avatar_ and they had let him through…well, for relatively the same reason, and because Beifong had vouched for him in the past) and folded his arms behind his back, blue-grey eyes unreadable as they surveyed the damage. Lieu's bike, crashed against the wall, not for the first time. His generator (the smaller version that he carried with him out of uniform) crushed by a rock. There was blood splattered in a few places, torn cloth from his clothes, and from the clothes of others. Ice and burn marks.

Definitely Triple Threat. Narrowing his eyes, Amon moved closer, knelt by the bike, and took a careful look at the area where it was, along with Lieu's generator. There wasn't enough blood to be from any serious injuries—just splatters, probably spat out of the man's mouth, or from the people that had attacked him. There was more than enough to ascertain that there had been quite the fight, between multiple people. He closed his eyes behind his mask and took a slow breath.

If they waited for the police, the Triad would get him somewhere hidden. Somewhere that he couldn't get out of, that they weren't aware of—Triple Threat had been given plenty of time to rebuild a new underground network without the careful over-the-shoulder eye of the Equalists to watch their every move. If they waited for his troops, much the same thing would happen, and they needed to be able to move while the signs were fresh. They had to get the older man back before the Triad decided what they wanted to do with him. To use him for ransom would be the most obvious idea, but they were never obvious. They would probably use his Lieutenant to get revenge on him. They had to find him first.

Lieu had always taught him to calculate every possible advantage and disadvantage before he jumped into something. His past lives had warned to use strategy and logic to overcome their opponents. Aang had always advocated to him the importance of foresight. But right now, he didn't have that luxury. He had to move, and move fast. He had to save the older man before things got worse.

And, after all, who better to rush headfirst with into something than Avatar Korra herself, the queen of terrible ideas and lack of forward planning? She had managed to do plenty of harm to the Equalists just by barging in without thinking, and she was a strong enough Bender that she could keep the fire off of him while he did the hard work.

Lieu had suggested that they do something together, after all. Try to compromise. And they clearly weren't going to do that as long as they kept trying to work the way that Amon thought was best. He might be the Spiritual one here, but Korra was all about the humanity.

"We can't wait." He said, no question in his voice.

"What do you want to do then, Mister-I-Can-Plan-Anything."

"If we bring the police, they'll see that as us clearly getting the law involved. That will end badly. If we wait for my Equalists, they'll use the time to get him far away. We need to strike and do it strategically somewhere they won't be expecting it, find him before they can do anything. The faster the better."

"So…what." Amon turned to look back at her, one eyebrow arched, one hand on her hip. "What do you want to do, barge in guns blazing, sweep him off his feet, and run out?"

He stared back.

"When you put it that way, yes." Korra's jaw dropped, and she stared at him like he had just grown a second head. "Leave the car. I can guess at where they've taken him. We'll plan once we get there." He started moving and she jogged to keep up, and said aloud,

"I don't know who you are and I don't know what you did with Mister Bacon-Face Step-By-Step or whatever, but I think I kind of like you."

Amon just grunted.

There were a specific set of warehouses used by each Triad. With three years of planning in the city, Amon knew where each of them were. He had been keeping tabs on the new locations gained by each after they had raided the old ones while the Revolution had been happening, so it wasn't hard to follow the thought process.

He ignored the closest, smaller ones. It would be, if anything, their Headquarters. Somewhere far enough away that it would take a while to arrive, which lead them to the docks district, and he lead them there fast, sprinting through the streets, alternating with jogging, while Korra tried to keep up. She was more muscles than speed.

They arrived just in time to see a car drive inside, and Amon flung out an arm, slamming Korra back against the nearest wall, making her grunt in surprise and pain, pinning her there while he swept cool blue eyes over the building. Weak spots, areas unpatrolled.

"Through the back window," he said quietly. "Take out the perimeter guards—let me do that, Bending will get us too much attention. We sweep through the inside, find someone who will know what they're talking about, interrogate him (you can help with that, fire tends to get people talking) and then we get out, get Lieu, get back to Beifong."

"Won't they be expecting someone from the back?" Korra said, shoving his arm off of her. "That's how they always do it in the radio serials."

"Nobody ever looks up," Amon replied long-sufferingly, looking back to her. "Behind, in front, down, to the sides, yes. But never up. If we come from above, in the windows, they'll never see us coming."

"No," she snorted, crossing her arms. "We break down the front door. They're going to expect _you_, right? And even I know that you're all about planning for the weak points. They'll see their own weaknesses and cover them."

"You never did," Amon replied matter-of-factly. Korra scowled and gave him a withering look. "We hit them where it hurts. It's like taking someone down fast and efficiently—you don't grab a man's arm when you can just as effectively kick him hard in the balls and get him down and out."

Korra stared at him, and Amon half-shrugged.

"When they fight dirty, you fight dirty too."

"No." Korra shook her head. "Mako and Bolin _worked_ with these guys. They're too smart for that plan." She ignored Amon's quite _yeah, right,_ and kept talking. "They won't look for someone coming in from the front. They'll be too busy covering their asses." She grinned and clenched one hand into a fist, slammed it into the palm of her other one. "We can take them down like _dominoes_ if we get the jump on them."

"Fighting is not the answer here," Amon snapped, grabbing ahold of the bricks of the building they were hiding around the edge of and dragged himself up a few feet, fingers and toes easily finding handholds to get about fifteen feet up and a better vantage point. "We want as few casualties as possible—we _don't_ want to get their attention. We want them to not see us coming, so we can catch someone who knows what's going on before they run."

"Nah." Korra looked up at him as Amon finished surveying the ground and clambered back down, hopping and hitting the ground, knees bent to absorb the impact. "We go in through the front door, beat the snot out of them, and ask them where the Lieutenant is and they tell us through their bleeding teeth. Simple as freezing urchinfish in a barrel."

Amon gave her a look from behind his mask that read, basically, _you are such an idiot._

"When has that ever worked for you," he pointed out calmly. "I can think of _so_ many times that never worked. Let's see—when you showed up at the rally and ended up having to run away because Lieu beat you and your sidekicks half to hell, or when you tried launching up at my airship and had to rely on Beifong to save you, and still failed to get anything done. Or maybe when you ran headfirst into Republic City and left the Air Temple entirely unguarded and open to destruction because you never thought about covering your back—or, I think my personal favourite, trusting the biggest liar in this entire city when he told you facts about me and breaking into my rally only for—"

"Hey, shut up." Korra pointed at him. "You're just reminding me of all the reasons I don't trust you."

"Face it, Avatar Korra." Amon crossed his arms. "The one and only time that you've managed to get a foot up on me was when you used your head and faked getting electrocuted and ran off—and I didn't even really care that much because I _told_ Lieu to let you get away." He raised one eyebrow at her behind his mask, but she couldn't see it. "And I managed to take over the entirety of Republic City, destroy the Triads, negotiate a treaty with the most influential people in the world, and for most of that time you were playing sports."

Korra looked ready to kill she was so angry, her cheeks flushed and her jaw squared and set.

"You just think you're _so smart,_ don't you?" her voice was angry and cold. "Fine. Then _you_ can pull your little sneak-in-behind-them manoeuvre. I'm doing the one thing they won't expect." Amon opened his mouth in disbelief and shock.

"Did you hear a single word that I just said. Korra, punching things isn't always the answer!"

"Yeah, well, your answer is going to end up in punching things _anyway,_ and all _I _heard was 'My name is Amon and I took over a city, destroyed some parts of it, broke people's psyches, and still get to lord it over everybody else, meanwhile, you're Korra and you're stupid and worthless!"

"No, what you should have heard was _there is a reason the Equalists trusted me to lead!"_

"Well I _don't!_" Korra shouted, and then looked around. She gave him an angry look. "You're just as young and stupid as me, you don't get to sound all high and mighty. We can do both our ways and see which one works out."

"Korra—" but she was ignoring him and running for the front door, stomped on the ground, stone launching her up, and she landed in front of the warehouse just in time for Amon to start racing after her, throwing the winds behind him to give a boost of speed, but he was too late.

She kicked the door open with a burst of fire, rolled through it, and Amon got within ten feet of the open door when he saw what he had expected on the inside—a good twenty Triad Benders had been waiting for her, and before she could even start fighting them one of them hit her, hard, in the head with a rock.

Korra never saw it coming. She was too busy summoning a burst of flame around her foot, and she went down like a sack of flour, hitting the ground boneless, and Amon slammed to a halt, the winds spinning around him, eyes wide.

Nine Firebenders. Six Earthbenders. Five Waterbenders. All of them ready to fight, staring him down. He let out a slow breath, muttered about _idiot Avatars_ and lowered his arms to his sides, palms flat, held very still.

"I can't fight you." Amon knew when he was beat. He could take maybe one of the sets. But not all these people. The men looked between each other, disbelieving. One Firebender, clearly the leader, took a step or two forward, expecting him to attack, but Amon held still.

He could work with this. They would take him where Lieu was, or to a similar jail cell. They now had both Avatars and the one Non-Bender representative on the Council. Here was the answer that they had been looking for. He and Korra were important political prisoners—only an idiot would waste them. All he had to do was let them lead him to Lieu and it would all work out perfectly.

The Firebender got closer, finally decided that he wasn't going to attack, and gestured forward one Earthbender, who kicked up a clump of earth to bind Amon's hands together, doing the same to the unconscious Korra. "Check if it's him," one of the Waterbenders asked. "Anybody can wear a painted mask."

Amon grit his teeth as panic suddenly threatened to overtake him. He closed his eyes, breathed haltingly through his nose, and held very still as the Firebender got closer, reached out, and pulled the mask from his face. Everybody was very quiet, and he resisted the urge to fight back, to let his lips shake. He wouldn't cry.

"What an ugly son of a bitch," one of the Earthbenders said. "Wasn't it Ulai that did that to him?"

"Yep. Maybe he can finish the job, huh?" The Firebender with his mask stepped away and Amon opened his eyes, breathing short, angry breaths through his nose (he was going to _kill_ Korra) and trying not to think about the way the men laughed. "Toss them in the truck," the man said, and Amon hung his head. "We'll take them back and toss them at Headquarters. Away from the Lieutenant. We can chain them in the car."

Amon closed his eyes.

Maybe he was just as young and stupid as Korra was.

It had been a miracle they hadn't knocked him out. Since he had come peacefully one of the stronger thugs had just punched him hard in the temple and they hadn't checked to see if it had actually put him out cold, Amon just faked it and ignored the searing pain in the side of his face, laying chained to Korra in the back of the truck. She, on the other hand, really _was_ out.

The ride was short and he stayed still for all of it, let the Triad members manhandle him and Korra out of the truck and drag them both into a build, all the while carefully mapping out the way that they had come in his head, their way out. He would figure this out. They needed a plan. He lay still as they chained him and Korra together around the wrists and dumped them in a metal cell, the door clanging closed, and slumped against her shoulder, listening as footsteps approached down the hall.

"They came, just like the boss thought they would." The same Firebender that had taken his mask. "They're both out cold."

"That's good." It was a woman's voice, cool and controlled. Amon's mind spun as he tried to match it to a Triple Threat member he knew. Probably Shara, a Firebender. Zolt's daughter. "Are they harmed?"

"Not past knocking them out. How's the old guy?"

"He fought until they took him down by force. He's a mess but not debilitatingly injured—he's conscious." Amon let out a shaking breath, closed his eyes. Thank the Spirits. "Keep them here. We'll start getting in contact with the right channels. They'll want their little Avatars back. But if their revolutionary gets a few more burns well…who will be able to tell the difference. Just wait until we're in negotiations."

"Got it."

Their footsteps wandered off and Amon lay there, collapsed on Korra. He couldn't risk being in Avatar State here—he needed to have his full wits about him. He could, however, calm his thoughts. Waiting until it was silent except for both of them breathing, he shoved Korra more upright and adjusted himself, folding his legs, their hands knotted together, straightened his head, and let out a slow, deep breath.

He began to meditate, and in his meditation, to form a plan.

It was probably about an hour before Korra stirred, groaning in pain, groggily trying to sit forward only to find herself stuck. She yelped in surprise, tried to jerk free again, and Amon grunted.

"If you dislocate my shoulders I really _will_ kill you."

"What?" Korra was fully awake now, and started to jerk, screaming in surprise, kicking her legs, launching blasts of fire out the soles of her feet while Amon flinched, ducked his head aside, dark hair sliding to brush against his cheeks and opened his eyes. "What's going—"

"Calm down," Amon snapped, staring at the wall directly in front of him, dark strands of his hair hanging in front of his eyes, gritting his teeth. "Don't start shooting off fire, things will only get worse if you do that." Korra, breathing unevenly and sharply, still twisted, but seemed to be getting her bearings. "You can't Metalbend." It wasn't even really a question.

"No." Korra replied carefully. "Amon, that is _you_ behind me, right?"

"Yes."

"How long have you been awake?"

"They never knocked me out—I faked it and came peacefully." Korra jerked against his arms and Amon felt her twist.

"What the hell did you do that for? You could have taken them down, I've _seen_ you fight. I've fought you! You took out Zolt like he was a five year old shooting his first puffs of smoke, right there in front of everybody!"

"One on one, yes. This was different." Amon sighed through his nose. "There were more there than I possibly could have taken out on my own. Maybe with Lieu. _Maybe._ It would have been a waste for me to go down fighting, heavily injured, and would have gotten us both into more trouble. By coming peacefully, I've heard their plans, know in general where we are and how to get out. Also, I've been able to plan his whole time."

"All right," Korra said, still sounding scared—a potent mixture of terror, anxiety, anger, and restlessness. "So what's your plan?"

"They waited for us. They guessed we would come after them—I suppose I'm not as good at pulling off being a calm adult as I like to think." Amon snorted, annoyed at himself. "They went for my weakness and I dragged you along. They were expecting us, probably at both locations, front and back. They plan to use you and me, as well as Lieu, for ransom. That's why they didn't injure us any more than they already had." He held back the press of unexpected fear in his throat that spoke of what they _wanted_ to do to him. "We're in a metal cell, somewhere below ground. I can get us out of here, but only if we can get out of the cell. Can you melt or break the chains?"

"I could melt them but not without burning us both." Korra seemed to be coming around to his way of thinking, no longer in the immediate panic of waking up somewhere she didn't know. She was good at bouncing back from getting knocked down. "Hey." Amon turned as far as he could, looking over his shoulder, and she turned as well, only to startle, jerking on his shoulders, her blue eyes wide. "W-What—"

Her reaction to his face hit Amon like a punch in the gut, and he looked aside, jaw clenched, tried not to think about it, closed his eyes. "They took my mask. To make sure it was me, and to prove to Beifong and Tenzin—most likely—that they actually have us." Amon closed his eyes, turned further away. "Also, I'm sure, to break my spirit when I 'woke up' and found it gone." Korra didn't say anything.

"I… I'm sorry. People reacting like that probably hurts." She actually sounded apologetic. That was the first time he'd ever actually heard it from her.

"You have no idea," his voice was cold, not because he was angry—because he was regretful. "I haven't gone without my mask since I was fifteen." Korra was quiet. Their planning was forgotten for now—the air was thick with unsaid words and his anger at himself for caring how she reacted, at the Bender who had done it to him, and her confusion, her curiosity.

"What happened?" She finally said, and Amon turned, stared back at his side of the cell, adjusted his legs, stretched them out before him, and then folded his knees up to his chest, closed his eyes, leaned his forehead against them.

"When I was thirteen… my parents died in a blizzard. Just before the White Lotus went to see you they came to see me, since I could Airbend, and when I could do nothing else, they decided it was some weird fluke somewhere in the genetics. So they left. My parents were… very poor. They had hoped that, if I _was_ the Avatar, they wouldn't have to scrape and scrounge. That someone would help care for me. But… I wasn't." He sighed. "I'm still not."

"At least you didn't get settled in it and then find out you were wrong," Korra replied quietly, and there was pain in her voice, her words thick. "I'm not sure what hurt more in the long run…the idea that I was just too bad of an Avatar to figure out how to Airbend or connect spiritually with anything, or that I _couldn't._" She spat the last word angrily. He felt it like a punch in the chest.

"I wish I had told you a better way." Amon opened his eyes and stared at the metal between his feet. "I thought about it—that was why we avoided you as much as we could during the Revolution. Lieu and myself, I mean. There wasn't going to be anything good that came of us clashing." And in the end he had completely screwed that particular reveal up anyway.

"Yeah, you were right that time." Korra snorted. "Anyway, you were saying?"

"Yeah." Amon stared at the floor more. He'd only talked about it with Lieu once, early on when he was healing. He had never thought he would be talking this over with _Korra_ of all people. "They managed to take care of me until I was thirteen and then… there was a blizzard. A bad one. They were out on a hunting trip, the entire party died. I was orphaned. Nobody would take me in—people saw me as a freak because of my Airbending. So I took what money they had left behind and… came here. To Republic City. I wandered a bit at first, yes, but I ended up here anyway. Just after I turned fifteen, actually.

"It was right after I got here—I was looking for a good alley to spend the night in when a couple of Triads mistook me for a prostitute." It hurt to say it. "It was dark, they couldn't be blamed, but when they saw that I wasn't they got angry and I lashed out as best I could. I always hid my Bending as much as possible, and I did to them to. Before I could really start fighting back…the Earthbender grabbed me, angry, held me down. The Firebender burned my face off because he was pissed. They probably would have done worse."

"Why didn't they?" Korra sounded quiet.

"Lieu saved me. He was walking by, heard the commotion, and together we knocked all three of them out. He cared for me, too. I didn't want to see a Healer, and he did it all himself—kept my burns from reopening, changed my bandages, made sure they healed. And then I joined the Equalists."

"Wait—" Korra paused, looked over her shoulder again. "You _joined _the Equalists? I thought you started them."

"No." Amon looked back over at her, and while her eyes flinched slightly from being so suddenly close to his face, she didn't jerk away this time or visibly turn away otherwise. She had probably just been surprised earlier—there was pity in her eyes, but above that, solid determination. "They were working for equal rights long before I showed up. It just so happened to be that, when I joined, they had just lost their previous leader. Hiroshi and Lieu weren't really sure what to do. Hiroshi would have taken over, I think, if it weren't for his position."

"Why didn't the Lieutenant?"

Amon snorted and shook his head. "Lieu is someone you want beside you in a fight. There's nobody I would rather… have watch my back." He clenched his hands. He wanted Lieu at his back _now,_ not Korra. "He can lead a team into battle, protect the people he cares about, give orders that nobody will question, do all the hard work, but he's not charismatic. Not really. He's a planner, a doer, a thinker. He _ran_ the Equalists, but he couldn't _lead_ them. He can't stand up and incite three hundred people when he talks. He gets awkward and starts telling terrible anecdotes about the time when he was twenty-six that he burned off his own moustache. But I… I _am_ good at that. He brought me in, taught me how to fight, how to lead, how to plan, how to strategise. And I brought people to the cause."

"Huh." Korra sounded quiet. "So he was sort of like your Tenzin, yeah?"

"Something like that." Amon said quietly. "Yes."

"I always thought he was like your uncle or something. But he wasn't—he was your mentor."

"Yeah." It was quiet for a bit. It was the longest conversation they had ever had. Amon felt Korra shift around behind him, and then—

"I guess it was right after the Order showed up to see you that I lit my mother's summer parka on fire. My father was furious that she had let me play near the stove, but I had done it on my own. They fought for a few days until I showed up one day, told them I could bend, and breathed fire." Korra laughed. "My dad was upset, but now I realise it was because he had thought my mother had been with someone else before I was born. I figured out Earth and Water within a month and they called the White Lotus to meet us. I kind of made my being the Avatar my thing… right from the start. I never even _thought_ about anything different. They put me in this compound—you would have hated it—and kept me safe and hidden away from everybody. I never had a normal life. Just… day one. Avatar training.

"I never had any friends outside of there, or to get to see my family much. I just bonded to my teachers like they were my family and friends. Katara was always nice to me, though. Even if she was very sad that I wasn't… Aang anymore. But I guess I never really _was_ Aang. That was you."

"I wish I could find a better way to let us all communicate." Amon sighed. "You would like him. He gives good advice about plenty of things."

"Does asking him for love advice count?"

"No, not really. But you probably could anyway." It got quiet between them for a few minutes then, and Korra finally asked,

"So what's the plan?"

"No melting the chains and these metal bars are too thick for you to easily Firebend them open without your arms free—can you break the chains with ice?"

"I could if I had some water."

"We can make some."

"Wait are you seriously suggesting that I use piss because I'm not—"

"No!" Amon's voice came out shrill as a mixture of disgruntlement and disgust. "No. Here. Press back against me, straighten out your legs, and put your feet flat on the floor." Amon felt Korra shift until she mumbled a _yeah, what now,_ and grimaced. "Now push hard against me while I push hard against you and we can stand up." It was teetering, but they managed it and got to their feet.

"So?"

"Run at the same pace as me. In opposite directions. Not hard enough that we can dislocate our shoulders, but enough that we can make our bodies work hard."

"Sweat?"

"Katara did it during the war."

"Fair enough. I can probably get more from the moisture in the air, that will be enough." At the same time they both started moving. Probably ten minutes of that before Korra pronounced it enough water and bent it off of both their bodies, pulled it out of the air, and Amon listened to her tense breathing as she carefully manoeuvred the water to wrap around the chains holding their wrists together, and to the links connecting them, and iced it on.

"Now what?"

"Get the chains as weak as you can get them." Now it was Korra grumbling under her breath, squeezing the ice, and Amon flinched as it started to nip at his skin, but there was nothing they could do except this, and finally—finally—the metal creaked, cracked.

"Have you ever dislocated a shoulder before?"

"Once, when I was twelve, during an Earthbending lesson." Korra replied, looking over her shoulder at him as Amon braced his feet. "Why?"

"Because you're about to do it again."

"What—" and then he blew them apart with a sharp, short, powerful blast of air that shattered the chains and threw them both into the opposite walls. Amon slammed into the metal hard enough to bruise his chest and on the weak, aching side of his head, his right arm dislocating, and caught himself on his left, even as Korra shouted in surprise and rammed head-first into her own wall, same arm dislocating.

"Give me some warning next time!" She shouted, indignantly, and Amon sliced one finger across his throat.

"Stop shouting. If they figure out we're awake we're in even more trouble." Korra groaned, grabbing her arm and putting it back into the joint even as Amon did the same with his own and slid to the ground, pressing his unhurt hand to his temple. "You might want to get that water and clean us up," he said, and Korra pulled it closer, wrapped it around her right hand and pressed it to her left shoulder, the dislocated one, and started healing. "I think I have a concussion."

"I can't do much for that, it's internal and blood-based swelling." Korra came closer as Amon tried to right himself only to feel his stomach turn over and he leaned back against the wall, eyes shut for a moment before he opened them again and stared at the ceiling. "But I'll do what I can. How do we get out of here?"

"We melt open the bars. We sneak through. I take out anybody we come across quickly and quietly. We find Lieu. We go." Korra finished healing her own shoulder and knelt beside him, the water glistening on her hand as she reached for his shoulder. "No. My head. I can fight with a dislocated shoulder." Amon refrained from mentioning his distaste for healers as Korra pressed her hand to his injured temple. "That's it."

"Works with me." It was quiet as Korra intently worked over his head, trying to lessen the mess that was a concussion. It was quiet again before she finally spoke up, "Why do you always call him Lieu?"

"What do you mean?" Amon tilted his head slightly.

"I mean, if he was your mentor…I would think you would know his name, but you still call him that silly nickname for _Lieutenant _all the time. He even gave it when he became a Councilman." Amon stared at her, eyes slightly unfocused, and gave Korra a questioning, confused look.

"Lieu…is his name."

"Wait, what." Korra stared at him, pausing in her healing. "He's the Lieutenant…who also happens to be named Lieu Te Nan? Isn't that just a bit…ridiculous?"

"The way he explained it to me was that when the Equalists were first getting started, the leader before him always called him Lieu Te—and some new recruits thought he was calling him Lieut, like Lieutenant. So it stuck."

"Bolin just always called him Moustache Guy." Korra grinned. "That moustache sure is dumb looking."

"I like it," Amon grumbled, drumming his fingers against the floor of the cell. "It makes him look handsome." Korra gagged and looked at him like he was crazy.

"He's like… old enough to be your _dad!_ Anyway, you're both men! That's just _weird,_ seriously. Why would you think he looked handsome?"

Amon deadpanned back at her, raised his eyebrow bone even if he didn't have any, and turned up the very edge of his mouth in am almost-smile. "You just don't get it at all, do you."

"Get _what?"_ Korra sounded indignant and annoyed.

"I—" they weren't lovers, they had never slept together, but they weren't exactly boyfriends either. They were closer than that. Lieu was his partner. His protector, his guardian, his strong right arm, his rock in the storm, his voice of reason and logic, the man that held him while he slept at night. "We're a thing." He finally said awkwardly, voice coming out strained, and shrugged, glanced more toward the side. He could feel what remaining skin there was on his ears and upper neck flush in embarrassment. If he hadn't been so horrifically burned, he probably would have been blushing all over.

Yeah. That made it clear.

"Wait like—" Korra cut off, her jaw dropping. "You two are _dating?_ Oh, Spirits!" She stepped away, but his head was no longer aching and his vision wasn't fuzzy. "Oh that's just _gross!"_

"Not any worse than you and Firefighter Ferret boy," Amon replied. "Seriously, what are you thinking about with him? He's a mess all around." Although, unfortunately, rather good looking. It was always a pain when someone who was a gigantic asshole was actually attractive.

"Hey, you don't know Mako." She put one hand on her hip, pointed at him with the other. "He might have screwed up once or twice, but he cares about me." Rubbing at the side of his head, clenching and unclenching his injured shoulder hand, Amon scowled at her.

"I fail to see the logic in that statement. He's impetuous, which I suppose is enough like you, with a short temper, a tendency to light up a situation before he thinks his way through it. So, again, like you. You two share plenty of personality traits. But he's also indecisive, violent, volatile, and practically broke his brother's heart, not to _mention_ Asami. Honestly, you would be better off dumping him." Amon leaned heavily against the wall, scowled, and shoved himself to his feet, stretching and working out the kinks in his back, avoiding his injured shoulder.

"Yeah, well, what would you know about it," Korra snapped, turned away from him, and snorted smoke, and then flopped down on the floor to the bottom bars and started melting at the hinges of the cell door. "You don't know anything about him."

"My personal interactions with him don't matter," Amon snorted. "I've seen and heard enough. When you're in a relationship with someone, they're supposed to be there to support you, to build you back up when you're down, to love you and romance you. But also to give you solid advice, cut you down when you've gone too far, to be an even keel and to balance out what parts of you are missing." Amon carefully avoided his bad shoulder while Korra angrily shot the fire out of the tip of her finger again, working on melting the locks. "And as far as I can tell, Mako does none of those things for you. In fact, he does the opposite—and while it might be beneficial to have someone so like yourself, he's shown in the past to have serious problems with voices of reason. As well as in general being an asshole to his girlfriends."

Korra was quiet and ignored him in favour of the lock. Not like Amon blamed her. She couldn't have been happy with the state of her relationship with him. _He_ certainly wouldn't have been.

"I know he's screwed up," Korra said finally, "And I'm not happy with the way that he left Asami either. I just… don't want to think about it right now, okay?" She glanced over her shoulder at him. "He cares about me and I care about him. Why do you care?"

Amon half opened his mouth to respond _because he's not worth your time_ or something like that, when there was a bang down the hallway. Sounded like someone getting tossed against the wall. Almost immediately, Korra stepped back, her fire vanishing, and Amon put his uninjured arm toward the door of the cell, fist clenched. They glanced at each other, eyes meeting, and he gestured to stay low. If it was a Triad member, they could probably get the jump on him together. If she could distract him, Amon could trap or disable him. And then they could get out.

There was another thud, louder, and what sounded like angry footsteps, bursts of fire, and a shout of pain before there was the noise of someone falling to the ground. There was the unmistakable noise of Earthbending and what sounded like a bone breaking, a body hitting the wall, a shout of surprise, swearing, and then quiet footsteps, the jingle of keys, silence.

"What?" Korra whispered, and Amon held out one hand, pushed her back toward the side of the cell that was nearer toward the noise, flattening them both there so that anybody coming up around the edge wouldn't be able to see them immediately.

"A fight," he whispered quietly, closing his eyes, concentrating, amplifying the sound waves. It was hard to do from this distance, but he could manage it, and he listened. Footsteps. What sounded like fast breathing. Getting closer. "This could be good or bad."

"How could it be bad?" Korra looked toward him, eyes bright. "It could be someone coming to get us!"

"Not enough time," Amon shook his head, expression tight, lips pursed. "But it could be. More likely, it's someone _worse_ than the Triads. Someone who might really want us dead." He slid into a fighting stance. "Be ready."

"For what?"

"Diversion." She stared at him, and he shook his head. "If it's someone who wants us dead, you light them on fire, and then I'll deal with him." Airbending had plenty of applications beyond the air itself. He could use it for darker, more terrible things than that if he had to. And as much as he hated thinking that, this was a matter of life or death. The footsteps got closer, paused at every cell along the hallway, and Amon listened carefully. They were off-centre, like the person walking was injured, but the lilt of them and the spacing was familiar. He held his breath.

The person came around the corner and it was only his last minute sudden grabbing of Korra's hand, knocking the blast of fire at the ceiling, that kept her from singing Lieu as he walked around the corner, and froze in front of the cell. Korra shouted in surprise, and Amon shoved her out of the way, practically threw himself against the bars, shooting one hand out to grab the older man's arm just as he reached for him.

"What are you doing here—" Lieu asked, grubbing his hand hard, fumbling for the keys with his other one.

"I was just about to ask you the same thing," the older man's pale blue eyes searched his face, looking for answers, held his gaze. "I thought they had beaten you—"

"They did." Lieu grinned, and there was blood on his teeth, not to mention other injuries visible. "They neglected to think about my pain tolerance." He was half-watching Amon as he fumbled for the key, trying them in the lock of the cell one by one, and he glanced over at Korra. "Did they seriously get you too?"

"Hey—" she said, indignant, "We were coming to look for _you!_ It wasn't my idea!" She scowled. "It was all Mister Strategy that got us here!"

"Yeah, me and your _running directly into their trap,_" Amon snapped at her, and she just made a face back at him, but he did hesitate, and sigh. "But they were expecting us anyway. They used you as bait for me." He reached for Lieu again through the bars as the older man finally found the key and jerked the door open. "I'm sorry. I made a mistake."

"I'm just glad you're all right." Lieu pushed his hand back through the bars and stepped into the cell, pulled Amon into his arms, and held him tight and close. Amon closed his eyes, pressed his face into the older man's shoulder, and breathed in the scent of his shirt, curled his fingers in the cloth over his upper back. "But it was stupid."

"I had no idea what they would do to you," he said quietly, and Lieu snorted.

"A lot less worse things than they could do to you." Letting him go, Lieu turned to Korra, glanced over them both. "How are you two?"

"That idiot dislocated our shoulders," Korra snapped at him, and Amon glared at her. "To break what they had tied us up with. And they cracked me pretty hard upside the head, but I'm fine otherwise."

"Minor concussion. I'm good." Amon looked over his Lieutenant, worry in his eyes—the older man was standing awkwardly on one leg, had torn up his jacket to make for makeshift bandages, and had used them to bind up his upper right arm, around his forehead, his left thigh, and his chest, although he was breathing evenly so his ribs had to be fine. One eye was a bit bloodshot, and there were burn marks visible just below where the bandage ended on his arm, peeking out the cloth of his shirt, ripped and singed. He was holding his jaw tense with the pain but seemed to be moving just fine, if a bit slower than usual. He had what appeared to be the handle of a mop, broken in two, folded under one arm. The ends were bloody.

He had taken out the guards.

"I'll be fine," Lieu said. "I'll get patched up once we're out of here—we need to move before they come back. Do you know the way out?"

"Well enough," Amon answered, glancing toward Korra. "If I get you to stone can you use seismic sense?"

"Uh…" she hesitated, and then nodded. "Yeah. But not all that well. Why?"

"I know general directions, but I don't want us to get turned around or to run into an ambush." Amon rolled his shoulders, getting them loose, and grabbed the hem of his shirt, ripped the cloth without wincing until he had a long, thin strip, and knotted back his hair, loose and mussed, without his mask to keep it out of his eyes, and left his hood down around his neck. Even out of uniform he wore shirts with hoods, but right now it would only get in his way without his mask to keep it out of his face. Lieu grunted, adjusted, and squared his shoulders. Korra looked sideways at him, eyes narrowed, like she was taking stock of his injuries.

"After," Lieu said, just as she opened her mouth. "They're going to start looking for me soon—I only knocked out about five people, and people stay knocked out a lot shorter than you hope they will. We need to get out of here before they start looking for me."

"…Right," she said finally. Amon jerked his head out of the cell at the hallway.

"We head left from here, and then right thrice, and left again at the third opening. Av—" he cut off. "Korra, you go first. You're the Firepower," he paused, and then added, "Literally."

"What do we do if we come up against a group we can't beat?" She asked, stepping out into the hall, looking warily left and then right, her fists clenched.

"Then I pull out the trump card and you find out how fast you can Bend three elements at once," was Amon's reply, and Korra watched him, and then nodded. "Simple strategy. You draw the fire, Lieu takes the large numbers down, and I deal with anybody who could pose a real threat." He couldn't take four at once, but he could take down one or two strong fighters. It would work.

"Works with me." Korra cracked her knuckles and started moving, getting halfway down the hallway before she realised that there weren't footsteps following her, and she turned, looked over her shoulder to see where the other two were, and then almost gagged.

Amon was standing on his toes, Lieu's hands on his upper arms, his hands on the sides of the older man's face, and they were kissing, close together, pressed flush, and Korra made a disgusted noise in the back of her throat as Amon's hands slid up into the Lieutenant's hair, tugged him closer, and tilted his head into the kiss.

"Ew," she said, and they broke apart a moment later, and Amon gave her an annoyed look. "Seriously—"

"Shut up," he snapped back, and Lieu just grinned as they started moving, the two Avatars gearing up to use their Bending while he took hold of his makeshift kali sticks.

They were working against the clock now, and it was no lie that the Equalists worked best under pressure—and, well, Avatar Korra was pretty good at that too


	5. Homecoming

— Homecoming —

They moved quickly as a team, Korra scouting, Amon throwing up his hands to stop her when he felt a disturbance in the air that was a guard, and then Lieu would take the man or woman down quickly and efficiently, knock them out cold, tie their arms with their own shirts, and Amon would temporarily block their Chi—the same way he had during the Revolution, to last a few months and no longer. And then they would move again, relying on the two Avatars with their seismic sense and general knowledge of the layout, combined with Lieu's damn good directional sense, to head toward what had to be the exit. Soon enough, even Korra caught on the non-verbal commands and cues that the two men gave each other, even if they hadn't been explained—most of them were plenty obvious. _One, two, three guards_ or _stop_ or _go._

And when Amon and his Lieutenant fought, they moved as one, Amon covering the older man's back, taking down people that were coming up on his blind side, faster and more agile than Lieu was, while the former Equalist protected the younger man, let him go for the big bads. They were like mirrors of one another. And Korra did what she did best, and broke heads.

It was an old warehouse type thing, double the size underground than it probably was aboveground, with chill rooms—they had been converted into the jail cells. As they moved Lieu took advantage of the frequent empty corridors to give the two teenagers quick and quiet explanations of what had happened to him. He had been biking to the signing ceremony when Triple Threat had attacked, almost twenty of them—more than he could take down alone. Even so, he had taken down a good ten of them with his one-stick generator before they knocked him out. He had come to quickly, while they were still locking him up, and feigned unconsciousness, the same way Amon had, and overheard the plan for the trap that the two Avatars had ended up falling into—to lure them in while he was gone, to make the police split away from them, and use Korra's hotheadedness and Amon's reliance and care for Lieu to make sure they came.

He'd tried breaking out twice before he had succeeded, the first time ending with the loosened lower back molar that had left his mouth bloody after a rock had met his jaw, and the second badly bruising his ribs, and a few smaller burns here and there, since all the larger ones were from when he had been captured in the first place. At that point, Amon and Korra had been captured, and Shara had come to his cell to gloat that he had been the perfect bait, and it was now only a matter of time before their demands were complied with. That had served nothing but to make him more determined, and more angry.

The third time, his hands had been bound, but they were taking him to use the necessaries when he broke the man who was escorting him's kneecap, Chi Blocked him, and broke the rope they had knotted his wrists with, already worn by the way he had been getting it loose in the cell, by practically dislocating his wrists and a few good, strong kicks and a timely blast of fire. He'd knocked the other one out with a pretty solid kick to the head, blocked his Chi, tied them up with their shirts, and gone looking for a broomcloset and somewhere to hide while he fixed his injuries.

And thus how he came to show up in the hall where they were being kept, bandaged up, holding either half of a broom handle, and a strong mixture or worried, pissed off, and anxious. Not that there was any time for real lectures—they had been discovered to have escaped, and all the people left in their wake were being found.

It was getting harder to get out, and it was a damn big hidey hole. It was only a matter of time before they were caught up to, and it happened just as they got aboveground, Korra taking point of a triangle formation, Amon to her back left and Lieu to her back right.

"There they are," Shara was Lightning Bolt Zolt's daughter, and she looked like it. She had to have gotten her mother's facial features, whoever that woman was, but she had her father's accent, and his strong eyebrows, his expressions, and his strength of Bending. Her long dark hair was plaited down her back, and around her a good ten other Triad boys spread out, grinning and looking ready to do some real damage. She wasn't smiling. "You know, I think this time the deal is going to be for every one of my boys you hurt—" she was talking to Lieu, "I'm going to let one of them burn off more of his skin."

Amon tightened behind Korra, and his breath sped up half a notch. Lieu didn't say anything, just shifted one hand slightly to the side. _Calm down._ Korra, on the other hand, just ground her teeth.

"Yeah, you're going to regret going after us," the girl snapped, angry. "Just you wait. If I don't personally get to break your head, you can _bet_ someone is going to." Shara smiled then, broad and wide, and laughed. It was humourless.

"Listen, little girl, how about you ask Beifong who gave her those oh-so-becoming scars sometime," Shara raised her hand, and the nails were long, sharpened to points, and she clenched her fist. "Trust me, nobody's going to be breaking my head anytime soon." The Avatar growled and started getting ready to attack, only for Amon to grab the back of her shirt.

"She's baiting you," he said, voice only slightly shaking. "Don't let her get to you, that's what she wants." Korra glanced to him out the side of her eyes and snorted angrily, smoke shooting out her nostrils. "The person who gets angry first in a fight is the person who regrets it first later. You can't think clearly or fight as well when you're not in control of your emotions."

"You're an Airbender," Korra snapped back under her breath, "Easy for you to say."

"Just trust me," he snarled back, eyes narrowed, and he pushed her aside, stepped forward. "Did you forget, Shara, what I did to your father?" Amon, the boy afraid of fire. Amon, the young man who had used to jump when people lit up cigarettes in his vicinity. Amon, the leader of the Equalists, who had dodged fire blasts three times as large as him, lightning larger, and proven that not even Lightning Bolt Zolt could be undefeated. "How easy it was to break down your Triad?" The woman ground her teeth together, and spat out one side of her mouth.

The wad of saliva lit on fire before it ever hit the ground. The three of them held very still as Shara grinned, and beckoned Amon forward.

"Let's make a bet, little boy. If you can take me down all on your own, little poster boy that you are, I'll let you go. No harm, no foul. I'll even turn myself into you, just like you probably want me to." Shara spread her arms wide. "But if your words are just you being cocky, and I take you down like a half-baked fighter in a ring, you're done. You and your little sidekick Avatar and the old guy don't fight back, because I _really_ don't want to have to deal with you three injuring anyone else, and trust me, I have more Triad boys than you can take down. You come along, nice and easy." She grinned, and it was all teeth. "What do you say?"

"Done." He said it without even glancing at them, and Korra grabbed his sleeve.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Her voice came out high and uneasy, and Amon turned to look at her, pulled his arm free, and smiled with the less ravaged side of his mouth, scars twisting.

"Trust me," he replied, and Korra stared after him as he took a step forward, slid back into an even battle stance, his hands at his side, shoulders loose, even if he held one awkwardly and his balance was very slightly off. Lieu reached out and put a hand on the Avatar's shoulder, tugged her back out of the way, and planted her to his side, and sheeted his makeshift kali sticks through his belt, arms folded behind his back. The girl looked to him with a disbelieving expression.

"He's going to get us killed—" she whispered, heated, and Lieu grinned, squeezed her shoulder, and winked.

He _winked_ at her.

"Who do you _think_ taught him to fight dirty?"

Korra stared at him, mouth half-open, like he had just grown a second head out of his neck.

Lieu and Korra were out of the way, and Shara stepped forward. She thought herself dangerous, but Amon had dealt with real _dangerous_ before. Zolt was dangerous—unhinged, incredibly skilled with years of practice and plenty of raw talent to boot, not to mention lightning. Tarrlok was dangerous, especially when they had fought—not thinking clearly, running desperate on too-high emotions, with the ability to snap a man's neck without trying at his fingertips, in a place where nobody could rescue them. Hell, even Korra was dangerous—more dangerous than this woman was, with three elements and plenty of raw, untapped power at her disposal.

On the other hand, Shara was one thing none of them had been—she wasn't emotional. She was like Lin Beifong, and Amon could understand where that had gone against the Chief of Police. Her emotions were utterly under control, locked away and kept behind iron bars and gates. She relied off of her mind, the same way he did. Cold, calculating, clear.

So he would need to have other weaknesses to use against her.

As the woman squared up, rolling her shoulders, Amon studied her. Women had less obvious weak spots than men did (but plenty none the less). For one thing, the Firebender was wearing a dress, tight and slinky, that showed every curve and bulge. It was slit almost all the way up one thigh, but the skirt would still restrict her movement. She was less stocky, so she would be more speed—agility and dexterity over raw muscle power, unlike her father. She clearly preferred to fight up close, what with her nails, which was a downside, since he was a Chi Blocker at heart, but that was as it was. She used her fire like the stories and descriptions had described Azula using her fire—cold and calculating.

But if Amon had learned anything from history, it was that anybody and everybody had a breaking point.

He just needed to find hers.

"Let's go, pretty boy," Shara said, smiling, her teeth sharp, sliding down into a loose stance—it was a Waterbending stance, all her weight in her arms instead of her leg, all limber and loose.

Amon narrowed his eyes, clenched his jaw, and decided to let _her_ come to _him._ See how she played and then work off of her weaknesses. Shara was sizing him up too, he could see. Amon didn't flinch, or let anything roll through or out of him. He stood like a Chi Blocker, which he was.

Let her find out fighting him was more like fighting an Airbender who happened to be able to stop your fire.

They circled silently (more accurately, _she_ circled, Amon stood stock-still, watching her) and finally Shara made the first move with a volley of fire, and Amon moved to the side and then they were off, her firing blasts that he had seen before from her father while he ducked, rolled, dodged, and spun past them, letting her use up her energy. When he got close enough, Amon ducked under a sweeping blast of fire she loosed from one knife-poised hand and grabbed her right arm, twisted it behind her, smacked four pressure points up it and then kicked her in the back, let her fall loose, and hit the ground hard on his hands and twisted, spinning, kicking her in the ankle.

Shara stumbled, screamed hoarsely, turned, and slashed at him with her fingers, claw-like nails now made even longer, even more dangerous, on her un-blocked arm by several inch long small fires burning from them. Amon threw himself backwards, eyes wide, heart rocketing into his throat, and ducked, but she came again even as he rolled, trying to get his feet back, and she turned her hand, cut at his side, and Amon didn't move fast enough this time.

Her fingers, all five of them burning, cut into his side, burning aside his clothes, the fire sharp and high-heat enough that it seared his skin and Amon clamped down on any shout, biting the inside of his lower lip so hard it bled and his jaw ached, hitting the ground and rolling on his side, putting out the flames, before he stumbled back to his feet, eyes watering.

It hurt a lot less the second time.

Shara smiled at him, all teeth, and came at him with another fire punch and he dodged it, eyes narrowed as he ignored the pain in his side.

"You know, I would have thought you were afraid of fire," Shara said conversationally, and Amon knew when he was being baited, just kept circling, sidestepping the fire launched at him. He needed an opening long enough that he could take her Bending. "Since air fans the flames, no?" He ground his teeth together. "Why don't you come at me with all your little winds, hmm?"

"Because you're not worth the trouble," he whispered in response, and she stared at him like he had just smacked her across the face. "Because fighting one wrong with another wrong does not make a right." And, what was more, it was his trump card. Being the Avatar (well, half) was his ace in the hole. If he used it before he needed to, it would just be a waste of the time and power he had been granted.

"Well then," Shara said, still using one arm, legs sliding apart as she started moving, using her front (and blocked) arm as a counterbalance to circle her good arm back, "Are you afraid of lightning?"

"I think you know the answer to that," Amon didn't let the flinch he felt when she launched the volley of electricity at him colour his voice, just jumped and rolled to the side and then inward so that when the bolt fizzled out—Shara might be Zolt's daughter, but even she couldn't hold a burst of electricity the way that he had been able to—Amon was well out of the way and closer to the woman again, and she responded by breathing and scything a kick, throwing up a wall of fire between them, the wood slats of the floor of the warehouse catching on fire.

This time, Amon did jump back, breath speeding. He might be all right when people were launching fire at him or normally, but a wall of fire being blown up in front of him would still startle him—just like it had a bit when Korra and Mako had done it at the Arena.

But, now just as then, it was too important for him to falter. Amon just backed up, and watched, and waited.

"So what are you afraid of?" She asked, teasingly, as they stared at each other over the fire. "Must be something. Everyone is. Even you must love something." Amon willed himself not to twitch, not to show any weakness, not to look—if he had been hidden under his mask and his hood that might have been different, but here he was, face all-but-naked. She could see every response that he had, at least as his eyes went.

And then Shara grinned, fire curling around her fist.

"I wonder what would happen if I melted it."

That did him in. Amon glanced to the side, toward Lieu, and met the man's eyes. His Lieutenant tried to shake his head but it was too late because the Firebender was laughing, a high, cold sound.

"So, that's what it is! How _sweet." _And then she turned, swinging her arms again, turning, electricity crackling in the air around her, down and up her arms. Amon glanced, eyes wide, his breath caught in his chest, and this time his eyes met Korra's.

It was like he heard her every thought. She heard his. And he knew in that moment something was utterly true.

They were on a wood floor. Beneath them it was stone but they weren't close enough for her to feel it—she couldn't throw anything up, couldn't block her. And he knew it without her even having to think it—she didn't know what to do with Lightning. It had been described before as _cold-blooded fire_ and there was nothing at all about Korra that was cold blooded. She was all hot blood and lack of forethought—she couldn't do a thing with it. And the technique to redirect it…she couldn't have known it.

Amon did. Aang had taught him in the Spirit Realm, even though the Airbender had been unsure of if it would work for him—he was an Airbender, with control over the Spirit World. Nothing more.

Now, maybe things could have been different if it had been a year prior. Amon had seen Lieu get hit with lightning—had seen the man get hit with lightning for _him._ But that had been when he was the Lieutenant, with two metal-ended kali sticks to act as lightning rods. He had redirected it himself, in one and other the other. But now he had nothing, just wood in his hands.

It was a split second decision and then Amon launched himself forward, running as fast as he could as Shara finished the circular motion and the lightning launched out of her fist. He distantly heard Lieu screaming his name as he jumped, throwing himself into the air, spinning with his legs over his head, stretching one arm out. The lightning, blue and crackling, flew toward him. His heart stopped thick in his throat, and then the electricity touched his finger.

It was a risk. But Amon had an understanding—when Aang had explained Energybending to him, it had been simple. It was exactly what it sounded like. You Bent the energy in your body, or someone else's body, like you would an element. And what was lightning if not the purest form of energy? Once it was in his body it should be the same thing as putting anything else through his chi lines.

His breath held in his chest, and Amon's eyes were wide. Every single hair on his body he could feel standing on end as the lightning went in one hand, and lanced up his arm, but he didn't let it hurt him—Bent it just like he would have done to take someone's Bending away, twisting the Chi and the energy. Down his arm, into his chest, through his stomach, his body still flipping, legs turning, spinning, down toward the ground.

He hit the wooden slats hard, taking in quick high breaths, and raised his other hand as the lightning continued to coil, , felt it lance up the other one. It was a moment there where he looked straight forward at Shara, the woman staring at him in terror, and he made the decision.

Amon raised his arm, felt the lightning continue down around his bones, coiling and curling, and then pointed it straight at her.

The bolt launched out of him with so much force it knocked him to the ground, and hit the wood in front of her with a clap of thunder so loud it made his eardrums hurt and hurled her across the room to smash into the opposing wall, clothes and skin and hair smoking.

Everybody was silent, and all of them stared, and even Amon looked down at his hands, covered in fractals where the electricity had spun through his veins, panting for breath, and had a hard time believing what he had just done.

When the police got there, Lieu and Korra had already subdued the rest of the Triad boys and they were all sitting on the ground, tied up or knocked out, bar Shara, who sat unbound between them all, staring blindly, while Amon tried not to look at her—he had waited until the rest of the men were out of the way before he had pressed his hands to the back of her neck and her forehead and torn her Bending from her like you ripped a splinter from a wound.

The officers tossed the Triple Threats into the back of the squad cars while Korra continued to clean up Lieu's injuries with water pulled over from the bay, the older man grimacing whenever she probed deep or got through another injury, Amon sitting to the side, folded up on top of a mooring post, staring out into the ocean, his side burning and screaming but not once did he let his fellow Avatar anywhere near him.

He just stared at his hands, covered in the red spiralling patterns that went in one finger and out the other, up and down his arms, like he couldn't believe they were there. His whole body still felt like it was on a live wire, and his heart hadn't stopped pounding. Even when Lin showed up, lectured Korra angrily, checked to see if Lieu was all right, and then turned toward where Amon was sitting, the councilman set his and on her elbow.

"Let him be," Lieu said quietly, looking toward Amon's back, the dark hair that brushed his shoulders. "He needs some time. And a mask, I think."

Lin had stepped back and down, and when they had all headed back to the station, Amon had talked quietly and even more tersely than usual, but when the file for this particular kidnapping was full up and Korra had pronounced Lieu as well enough to go home, the older man had stood up, waited for Amon.

For the first time the Airbender stared his other half dead in the eyes, and Korra had stared back. Even if he was still jumpy with electricity (and plenty else) they hadn't faltered from each other, and after a moment, Korra sighed.

"You could be worse," she said quietly in the hall outside of Lin's office. "And I hate to save it, but you kind of saved my ass. Like…three times."

"You're welcome." Amon half-smiled, his scars stretching. Korra laughed.

"You should wear that mask less," she said, taking his hand, squeezing it tight enough that his bones creaked. "You have a nice smile." Her blue eyes danced with light and she grinned. "How about next time we do this we don't get kidnapped?"

"How about next time we do this you listen to me instead of barging in like an idiot and nearly getting us both killed," Amon said it seriously, but he was smiling. "I owe you a few too." Lieu stared at them, his blue eyes laughing. He had, of course, been right. As soon as they were in a different situation with each other, they actually got along just fine.

"You sure you don't want me to fix your side?"

"I'll be fine, thanks." Amon pulled away, and the two Avatars looked at each other once more before Amon fell in next to Lieu, and the councilman wrapped one arm around the younger man's shoulders, squeezed once.

"Let's go home," Amon's voice was quiet and tired. Lieu didn't need to be told twice.

"The fractals will go away all on their own in a couple of days," Amon was sitting on the toilet in their apartment bathroom, the lid closed, while Lieu bandaged up his side with burn salve and clean linen. "They'll just dissolve back and away." He looked up, smiled. "Won't even leave any stiffness."

Amon nodded. He looked a bit more relaxed now that they were alone together. Both of them were more bandaged than they had been in months, and after a moment, he stretched out his hand, pressed his palm to Lieu's upper arm, where there was a raised scar that went from his shoulder down to near his elbow.

"How come this one never went away?" It looked like the ones all over Amon's arms did, but permanent, wider. Just a single middle strand with a few branches.

"You know," Lieu glanced over at it, turned his arm to study the scar, "I have no idea. I think it might be because the lightning hit me directly there and I had nothing to branch it out to." It had been before Amon had met him—the older man had been carrying around that scar long before the teenage boy with the Avatar curse had shown up on his doorstep. "Well, it's a good party story, anyway." He glanced up at the younger man, hesitated, one hand on his knee.

Amon just stared at his fingers and the red that flowered around his skin.

"What's wrong," Lieu's voice was quiet with worry, his fingers curling around Amon's knee. The younger man was still staring at his hands, almost like there was terror in his eyes. "I'm not angry at you for coming to get me, if you think—"

"No." Amon shook his head, voice dull. He closed his eyes. "That's…that's not it." A smile flickered around his ruined lips. "It…I always knew I would need to know how to do that at some point. Redirect lightning. I always thought, though, that when I did it…I would just put it somewhere nobody could be hurt. Like into the ground, or into the sky. Instead I just…shot it right back at her." Amon's expression twisted and he turned to the side, pulling slightly away from the older man. "I used Bending to hurt someone else."

"She's used Bending to hurt plenty others," Lieu ran soothing hands up the outsides of the younger man's thighs. "And probably would have hurt more, if you hadn't taken it away. Fighting fire with fire isn't always the answer, but today you probably saved my life. Korra's too." The older man's pale blue eyes watched him carefully, thoughtfully. "You can't run from it forever."

He didn't need to define what _it _was. _It_ was the way his eyes glowed, and the job that Amon had to do, one day or another. The job that he had so successfully shirked all this time.

Amon didn't meet his eyes—he couldn't. Lieu's hands ran up his thighs all the way to his hips, and rubbed his thumbs over the younger man's skin, no shirt there to stop him. He had lived a lot longer than his partner had—he had seen a lot more, done many other things.

He understood the hesitation, the fear, if not the things that had spawned it.

"Come on," Lieu said finally, standing, and held out his hand until Amon took it. "We've both had a long day. It wasn't what he wanted to say, but it was true. "Lets go lay down." Amon nodded mutely, still lost and trapped in his thoughts, and together they changed and got ready for bed, Lieu watching the younger man the whole time while Amon moved with the mechanical motions of someone who had been through harder things and done the same then, and they eventually got into bed side by side, the way they had slept for months, close and with skin touching, Lieu shirtless and Amon in the blacks he always wore even now, the older man's arm tossed around his waist, his nose tucked into the curve of Amon's neck, the fold where it met his jaw.

Amon did not fall asleep for a long time, but he did not neglect to notice that never once while he was waiting for the darkness to claim him that Lieu never started snoring—the older man had waited all along for him to fall asleep.

It was sometime in that time of night that existed between the witching hour and dawn, when it was darker than it had any right to be, and quieter than death, that Amon awoke screaming. It was not the first time and it was not the last time, but tonight it was particularly bad. He was twisted and knotted in the sheets, slicked in sweat, his heart pounding in his chest. Lieu was up only seconds later, catching him by reflex as he slipped and fell out of bed, slowing the adolescent's descent before he crashed to the floor, and Amon sobbed brokenly, curled into a ball, pressed himself back against the bed frame.

The metal pressed into the top of his neck, and his shoulders shook as he cried into his hands, whispering a muss of words under his breath as Lieu rubbed at the back of his eyes, tried to wake himself up more, and slid over toward the edge of the bed, reached down, set his hand on Amon's shoulder.

The noise that the young man made was like glass breaking. Lieu didn't do anything more, just held very still until Amon stopped hyperventilating, and then moved his hand up the teen's neck, pressed cool fingers against his hot, hot skin, rubbed at the tight muscles in the side of his neck.

"Breathe," Lieu's voice was rough with sleep, and Amon hiccuped, tilted his head into the man's touch for comfort. It took a bit of coaxing and negotiating, but eventually Lieu got him back onto the bed, wrapped his arms around the younger man's chest, and pulled him close until Amon was leaning on his chest, tears sticking to Lieu's skin, breath warm against his neck. He was shaking all over, covered in cold sweat, and his clothes were stuck to his skin, his hair matted down around his face. "Which one was it?" Lieu asked finally into Amon's hair, rubbing small circles on the small of his back and holding him like he would shatter if he breathed wrong, almost too-tight with worry. Amon shook his head.

"New one." He let out a shaking breath, his words hanging heavy and empty in the air. "It was lightning and…you." No elaboration was needed before Lieu pressed a kiss to the side of his head, held him tighter, and half-smiled into his hair.

"I'm not going anywhere any time soon." A pause, and then, more sincerely, utterly truthful— "I promise."

Amon nodded and then sighed against Lieu's skin. They held each other tight, and finally, when he wasn't shaking or crying anymore, Lieu let Amon go, turned on the bed, the sheets knotted around them, and took one of the younger man's hands before he reached out with his other one and pulled some of Amon's dark, coarse hair unstuck from his skin, wiped the worst of the perspiration away from the deeper whorls of his scars before it stuck there, dried there.

Amon watched him with bright eyes for several seconds, and then slid his hand away from Lieu's, up his arm, curled it around the back of his shoulder and the side of his neck, and pulled himself closer, slid his legs on either side of the older man, calves pressed alongside his thighs, and propped his other hand on the sheets.

Neither of them said anything before they started kissing. It wasn't rough or hard at first, just slow, careful. Lieu pressed his hands to the younger man's hipbones, slid them up onto his waist, and laid his thumbs against the base of Amon's ribcage, turned his head to deepen the kiss. It was lips and tongues and slow, careful motion. It got deeper fast enough, Amon moving his hands to knot them in Lieu's hair, pulling him up closer, unconsciously rocking his hips, and Lieu slid his hands further up his chest, carefully avoiding the bandaged burns on his side, palms coming to a rest just over the younger man's nipples.

"Amon…" Lieu's voice was quiet as the kiss broke, the young man watching him from beneath lowered lashes. His fingers still twitched, and there were dark, sleepless circles under his eyes almost like bruises, but his cheeks were flushed and his mouth parted.

"I've been waiting for this for three years," he growled, quiet. "I could have _lost_ you today, Lieu." He clenched his fingers into Lieu's skin. "I almost did. I was so scared when they patched through the news that you had been taken—" A hesitation. "I didn't even think it through. You're my oldest friend, my closest friend…my only friend." Amon paused, let out a shaking breath, and moved one hand to press his palm against the side of the older man's face.

Lieu watched him with pale eyes that were bright in the darkness.

"No, I'm not." His voice was just as quiet, and he smiled, almost pained. "I'm the man you're in love with. You do have friends. But…" he paused, thumbs rubbing against the skin of his chest. "I'm not sure who I was angrier at—you, for risking your life for me, even knowing that you were more important than I was, or the Triads, for _daring_ to hurt you again." His expression tightened, the lines beside his mouth and lips pulling taut, his mouth a line. "I would kill them all if they laid a hand on you."

Amon swallowed, his adam's apple bobbing, and then he dragged Lieu closer, buried his face in the older man's hair, and sighed, sobbed.

"I love you," he whispered, voice cracking, and then Lieu moved one hand to wrap around the back of his neck and they started kissing again. Hard, fast, breathless, and it wasn't for anything but air that they parted—but when they did, Lieu smiled, shook his head, and kissed the side of the younger man's mouth, against the ragged and ruined edge of his lips, where the skin and the muscle was nothing but scar tissue.

"I love you too. I think I've loved you longer than I told myself I ever could."

Amon practically fell into his arms


End file.
